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PREFACE 

In studying and teaching history I have been convinced of the 
desirability of making certain fundamental facts absolutely clear 
and familiar. An acquaintance with the physical and political 
geography of a country makes the events of its history seem real 
and natural ; a knowledge of the race elements of a people gives 
the strongest impression of the continuity of its history ; a study 
of the early political and ecclesiastical organization of a nation 

" es comprehensible later changes. I have therefore striven, 
first place, to give a full and clear description of early insti- 
tutions and conditions. 

Secondly, I have tried to select from the mass of historical 
detail what was significant rather than what was merely conspicu- 
ous, — what either gave shape and character to a considerable 
period of history, or was a clearly marked step in the general 
development of the nation. Detached episodes and merely 
striking occurrences, especially those in the field of military his- 
tory, have been hastened over in order that more attention might 
be given to the really great movements and influential men. 

Thirdly, I have clung pretty closely to the thread of English 
history, only introducing mention of other countries when their 
connection with England was especially close. Since England's 
story is so long and so eventful, I have felt that it had better here 
be told as simply, clearly, and continuously as possible, for its own 
sake, rather than to complicate it by including many facts drawn 
from the history of other countries. 

Finally, I -have omitted altogether statements and allusions the 
significance cf which could not be explained in the book ; and 



IV PREFACE 

have tried, on the other hand, to give a clear and adequat 
nation of all matters that have been taken up. It is true t 
practice may seem to disregard the teacher, who would pres 
be competent to explain those things to which the author 
and to interpret what he merely states. On the other hi 
student must usually deal with the text-book when he i: 
and may be glad to have everything clear at first ; while t 
qualified teacher will find a more useful and interesting fur 
testing comprehension, providing further illustration, draw 
international relations, and adding personal details to the 
sarily general statements of the text-book. 

The desirability of using outside readings, both of genera 
and contemporary sources, in connection with the text-book 
be too strongly urged. A Book of Readings, made up of 
from contemporary letters, chronicles, speeches, poetry, laws, 
and other records, corresponding chapter by chapter and i 
cases paragraph by paragraph to this book, has been prep 
the author. It is hoped that this will be used in connecti 
the text-book and will prove of service to both students and 1 
in illustrating and giving further meaning and interest to 
history. Indications of other works in which readings may b< 
further guidance for the teacher's own study, and suggest 
the preparation of reports on special topics are added 
chapter. The most useful and accessible of the works refe 
which might well be provided in every school • library, are 
with their publishers, in an appended bibliographical list. 

It remains only to make a grateful acknowledgment 
many colleagues and friends who have given valuable as 
and good advice during the preparation of this book, and 1 
authors and publishers who have permitted the reprodu< 
maps and illustrations. 

EDWARD P. CHE^ 

University of Pennsylvania 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I. The Geography of England i 

The British Isles. The Coasts and Rivers of England. Sur- 
face and Climate. Forests and Swamps. Natural Products. 

Chapter II. Prehistoric and Celtic Britain .... 12 

Prehistoric Races. Caesar's Invasion and Description of Britain. 
The Celtic Races. 

Chapter III. Roman Britain 20 

The Roman Conquest. Romanizing of the Province. Growth 
of Roman Towns in Britain. Roman Building. Rural Life. 
Roads and Industries. Language and Religion. Decay of 
Roman Britain. Summary of the Roman Period. 

Chapter IV. Early Saxon England (400-830) .... 36 

Settlements of the Angle's, Saxons, and Jutes. The Early 
Kingdoms. The New Race, Language, Religion, and Govern- 
ment. Barbarism. The Mission of Augustine. The Conver- 
sion of Northumbria and the Scottish Missions. The Synod of 
"Whitby. Organization of the Christian Church in England. 
Revival of Civilization. Internal Strife of the Kingdoms. Nor- 
thumbria and Mercia. West-Saxon Overlordship. Summary of 
the Early Saxon Period. 

Chapter V. Later Saxon England (830-975) .... 59 

The Incursions of the Danes. Formation of the Danelaw. 
The Danes as Traders. King Alfred and his Reforms. Alfred's 
Interests and Character. Closer Union of England. Winning 
Back of the Danelaw. Rural Life in England in the Tenth 
Century. Town Life in the Tenth Century. Literature and 
Learning in the Tenth Century. Dunstan. Political Organiza- 
tion. Classes and Ranks. Summary of the Late Saxon Period. 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter VI. The Danish and the Norman Conquests 

(975-1071) 85 

Renewed Invasion of the Danes. Danegeld. Reign of Cnut. 
Connection of England with Normandy. The Reign of Edward 
the Confessor. Duke William and Earl Harold. Invasion by 
William. The Battle of Hastings or Senlac. The Conquest of 
England. Summary of the Period of Conquest. 

Chapter VII. England under the Normans (1066-1154) 102 

The Norman Aristocracy. Military Services. Bishops and 
Abbots. The Common People. The Norman French Lan- 
guage. Reign of William I. William and the Papacy. Old 
and New Customs under the Normans. Domesday Book. Wil- 
liam II. Lanfranc and Anselm.- Henry I. Conflicts with the 
Church and the Barons. Reforms in Government. The Succes- 
sion. King Stephen. The Mediaeval Castle. Feudalism. Suc- 
cession of Henry of Anjou. Literature of the Norman Period. 
Architecture and Building. Summary of the Norman Period. 

Chapter VIII. The Foundations of National Unity 

(1154-1216) 145 

Accession and Character of Henry II. Henry's Dominions. 
Lack of Unity in England. Restoration of Order. The Jury 
System. The Common Law. The Assize of Arms. Feudal 
Taxation. The Church. Thomas Becket. New Revolt of the 
Baronage. Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The Literary Revival 
under Henry II. Richard I and the Crusades. King John. Loss 
of the Continental Provinces. Struggle with the Church. The 
Great Charter. Summary of the Period from 11 54 to 12 16. 

Chapter IX. The Formation of a United English 

Nation (1216-1337) 186 

Accession of Henry III. Architecture. The Universities. 
Writers. The Scriptorium of a Monastery. The Friars. The 
Towns in the Thirteenth Century. The Gilds. Fairs. Country 
Villages. Serfs and Freemen. Written Records. Reign of 
Henry III. Papal Representatives in England. Italian Holders 
of English Church Positions. Growth of the Power of the Great 
Council. Simon of Montfort and the Provisions of Oxford. 
Accession of Edward I. Parliament. Statutes. The Confir- 
mation of the Charters. The Jews. The Conquest of Wales. 
The Conquest of Scotland. Edward II. The Minority of 
Edward III. Summary of the Period from 12 16 to 1337. 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

Chapter X. The First Half of the Hundred Years' 

War (i33 8 -i399) 230 

Outbreak of the Hundred Years' War. The Battles of Sluys 
and Crecy. The English Long-bow. The Organization of the 
English Army. The Capture of Calais. The Black Prince. 
Knighthood. The Battle of Poitiers. Peace of Bretigny. Stat- 
utes of Provisors and Praemunire. The Black Death. The 
Statutes of Laborers. Improvement in the Position of Villeins. 
Renewal of the Long War. Parliamentary Agitation. The Poll 
Taxes. The Peasants' Insurrection of 1381. Wycliffe and the 
Lollards. Increasing Use of the English Language. Piers 
Plowman. Chaucer. Reign of Richard II. Summary of the 
Period from 1338 to 1399. 

Chapter XL The Houses of Lancaster and York 

(1399-1485) 264 

Reign of Henry IV. Rebellion of Owen Glendower. Joan of 
Arc. Wars of the Roses. Edward IV. Towns in the Fifteenth 
Century. Foreigners in England. Richard III and Henry VII. 
Summary of the Period from 1399 to 1485. 



Chapter XII. The Early Tudor Period (1 485-1 558) . 278 

Henry VII. Court of Star Chamber. Strong Monarchy. The 
Merchant Adventurers. The New World. The New Learning 
and the Invention of Printing. Henry VIII. Wolsey, Foreign 
Wars, and the Amicable Loan. The Divorce Question and the 
Fall of Wolsey. Submission of the Clergy. Foundations of the 
Reformation. The Reformation Statutes. The Dissolution of 
the Monasteries. Destruction of Relics and Shrines. Execution 
of More and Fisher. Pilgrimage of Grace. Ireland. Stages of 
the Reformation. The King's Marriages. Succession to the 
Crown. The Protectorate. The Completion of the Reforma- 
tion. The Dissolution of the Chantries, Schools. Inclosures. 
Fall of Somerset. The Debasement of the Coinage. Close of 
the Reign of Edward VI. The Plot for the Succession of Lady 
Jane Grey. Queen Mary and the Catholic Reaction. The Span- 
ish Marriage. Loss of Calais. The Restoration of the Papal 
Control. Mary's Declining Health and Happiness. Summary of 
the Period from 1485 to 1558. * 



viii CONTENTS 



Chapter XIII. The Reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) . 330 

The New Queen. The Religious Settlement. The Catholics 
and the Puritans. The Political Settlement. The Social Settle- 
ment. Restoration of the Coinage. The Statute of Apprentices. 
Pauperism. Elizabeth's Court. Mary Stuart. The Reformation 
in Scotland. Mary and Elizabeth. The Murder of Darnley. Expul- 
sion of Mary from Scotland. Elizabeth's Marriage Plans. In- 
crease of Puritanism. The Counter Reformation and the Jesuits. 
Political Danger from the Catholics. England and the Conti- 
nent. The Parties which favored Elizabeth. Industrial and 
Commercial Growth. Attempted Settlements in America. The 
Search for a Northwest Passage. Hawkins's Voyages. Francis 
Drake. The Channel Freebooters. Babington's Plot. Trial 
and Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The Spanish Armada. 
The Successful Period of Elizabeth's Reign. The Elizabethan 
Poor Law. Increasing Wealth of England. Dress, Eating, and 
Building. Royal Progresses. Elizabethan Literature. Shake- 
speare and the Elizabethan Drama. The Close of the Reign. 
Summary of the Period of Elizabeth. 



Chapter XIV. The Personal Monarchy of the Early 

Stuarts (1603-1640) 383 

James I. The Established Church and the Puritans. The 
Royalist and Parliamentarian Ideal of Government. The Hamp- 
ton Court Conference. The New Version of the Scriptures. 
The Gunpowder Plot. The Proposed Union of the Two King- 
doms. The Spanish and French Marriage Negotiations. The 
King's Favorites, Somerset and Buckingham. Raleigh. Raleigh's 
Last Expedition and Death. Settlements in America. The Pil- 
grim Fathers and the Puritans. The East India and Other Com- 
panies. Discord between the King and the Nation. Discord 
between the King and Parliament. Close of the Reign of James I. 
Charles I. Wars with Spain and France. Charles and Par- 
liament. The Petition of Right. Disputes on Religion and 
Taxation. Personal Government of Charles. Punishment by 
Star Chamber and High Commission. The Metropolitical Visi- 
tation. The Declaration of Sports. Distraint of Knighthood, 
Monopolies, and the Forests. Ship Money. The Earl of Straf- 
ford the Principal Minister. Summary of the Period from 1603 
to 1640. 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

Chapter XV. The Great Rebellion and the Common- 
wealth (i 640-1660) 431 

The Scottish Rebellion. The Short Parliament. The Long 
Parliament. Execution of Strafford. Constitutional Preform. 
The Grand Remonstrance. The Religious Question. The Irish 
Rebellion. Attempted Seizure of the Five Members. The 
Miiitia. The Civil War. The Solemn League and Covenant. 
Oliver Cromwell. Presbyterians and Independents. The New 
Model Army. Defeat of the King at Naseby. Negotiations 
with the King. The Second Civil War. Pride's Purge. The 
Trial and Execution of the King. The Commonwealth. Con- 
quest of Ireland and Scotland. The Navigation Acts and the 
Dutch War. Expulsion of the Long Parliament by Cromwell. 
The Little Parliament. The Protectorate. Summary of the 
Period from 1640 to 1660. 

Chapter XVI. The Restoration and the Revolution 

of 1688 (1660- 1 689) 466 

The Declaration of Breda. The Action of Parliament. The 
Dissenters. The Declarations of Indulgence. Titus Oates and 
the Popish Plot. The Exclusion Bills and the Succession to the 
Crown. Dread of Civil War. Execution of Russell and Sidney. 
The Triple Alliance. Subserviency of Charles II to France. 
Third War with the Dutch. Charles and his Ministers. Claren- 
don and the Cabal. Recognition of the Power of Parliament. 
Growth of Political Parties. The Attack on the Charters. Cre- 
ation of the Standing Army. Milton. Bunyan. The Habeas 
Corpus Act. The Plague and the Great Fire. Architecture and 
Painting. Science. Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea. Newspapers. 
Death of Charles II. Accession of James II. Invasion of the 
Duke of Monmouth. The Bloody Assizes. Use of the Dis- 
pensing Power. The Two Declarations of Indulgence. Petition 
of the Seven Bishops. Birth of a Prince. Invasion of William 
of Orange. William and Mary elected to the Throne. The Revo- 
lution of 1688. The Bill of Rights. Annual Taxes and the 
Mutiny Act. The Toleration Act. Liberty of the Press. Sum- 
mary of the Period from 1660 to 1689. 

Chapter XVII. Foundation of the British Empire 

(1689-1763) 516 

Battle of the Boyne. Reconquest of Ireland. Massacre of 
Glencoe. England and France. Personal and Political Position 



CONTENTS 



of William. Party Government. The Cabinet. The National 
Debt and the Bank. The Act of Settlement. War of the Span- 
ish Succession. The Grand Alliance. Marlborough. The Great 
Victories of the Wars. The Treaty of Utrecht. English Naval 
Supremacy. Union with Scotland. Ireland in the Eighteenth 
Century. Political Parties under Queen Anne. Accession of 
George I. Jacobite Rising of the Earl of Mar. The South Sea 
Bubble. Ministry of Walpole. Rising of the Young Pretender. 
Rise of the Methodists. The Evangelical Clergy. William Pitt 
and the Young Patriot Party. War with Spain. War of the 
Austrian Succession. Colonization of Nova Scotia. Reform of 
the Calendar. French and English in America. India and Clive. 
The Peace of Paris. Summary of the Period from 1689 to 1763. 

Chapter XVIII. The Industrial Revolution, the Amer- 
ican Revolution, and the French Revolution 
(1763-1815) 576 

George III. The New Ministry. The Industrial Revolution. 
Roads and Canals. Coal and Iron. Inclosures. John Wilkes. 
The Junius Letters. Grievances in America. The Stamp Act. 
American and English Ideas of Representation. The Declaration 
of Independence. Pitt, Burke, and Fox. The American War. 
Home Rule in Ireland. Close of Personal Rule of George III. 
William Pitt and the New Tory Party. Defects of the Repre- 
sentation. The Lord George Gordon Riots. The Reform of Par- 
liament. The French Revolution. War between England and 
France. Close of Revolutionary Agitation in England. The 
Irish Revolution and the Union. Resignation of Pitt. Abolition 
of the Slave Trade. Renewal of War with France. War of 18 12 
with the United States. Close of the Wars of Napoleon. Sum- 
mary of the Period from 1763 to 18 15. 

Chapter XIX. The Period of Reform (1815-1852) . . 617 

The Early Years of the Peace. The Manchester Massacre. 
George Canning and Moderate Toryism. Reform of the Penal 
Code. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Catholic 
Emancipation. Opposition to the Reform of Parliament. The 
Reform Bill of 1832. Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. The 
Factory Act of 1833. Reform of the Poor Law. Municipal Cor- 
porations Reform Act. Cheap Postage. Liberals and Conserva- 
tives. Steamboats, Railroads, and Telegraphs. Trade Unions. 
Chartism. Affairs of Ireland. The Corn Law League. Intro- 
duction of Free Trade. Victoria. The Crystal Palace. Sum- 
mary of the Period from 181 5 to 1852. 



CONTENTS xi 



Chapter XX. The Growth of Democracy (185 2- 1904) 646 

The Crimean War. The Sepoy Rebellion. Fetty Wars. The 
Civil War in America. Lord Falmerston. Gladstone and Par- 
liamentary Reform. Disraeli and the Reform Bill of 1867. 
Reform Administration of Gladstone. Imperial. Policy. Reform 
Bill of 1884-1SS5. Reforms in Local Government. Irish Home 
Rule. British Colonies and Dependencies. Canada. Australia 
and New Zealand. South Africa. The Boer War. Imperial 
Federation. Summary of the Period from 1852 to 1904. 

Chapter XXI. Social Changes and the Great War 680 

The Conservative-Liberal Unionist Party. The Liberal Party 
and its Allies. Workmen's Compensation. Trade Union Legis- 
lation. Old Age Pensions. Labor Exchanges. Minimum Wages. 
National Insurance. Factory Legislation. New Taxes. Reform 
of the House of Lords. The Parliament Bill. Payment of 
Members. Reform of Parliament. Women's Suffrage. Militancy. 
Labor Unrest. Great Strikes of 1911-1912. New Unionism. 
Socialism. Syndicalism. Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. 
Irish Home Rule. Accession of George V. Imperial Federation. 
Army and Navy Extension. The Triple Entente. The Japanese 
Alliance. The Great War. The Western Front. Other Fields 
of War. Maritime and Aerial Warfare. Entrance of New Bel- 
ligerents. Internal Changes Due to the War. Ireland. Defeat 
of Germany and her Allies. Treaty of Versailles. Reform Bill of 
19 18. Changes in Industrial Life. Summary of the Period from 
1905 to 1919. 

Table of English Kings 749 

INDEX i 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Chalk Cliffs Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

English Verdure, Aldenham Park, Hertfordshire 8 

The Years 786-790 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 68 

A Page of Domesday Book 112 

Durham Cathedral 142 

Bodiam Castle, built in the Fourteenth Century 226 

Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk : a fortified Manor House of the Wars of the 

Roses 274 

Elizabeth and her Courtiers : a Painting of 157 1 372 

Village of Elstow, Bedfordshire, where Bunyan was born 492 

Part of the City of Benares, India 570 

Early Railroad Trains 634 

Houses of Parliament, built 1852 , . 658 



LIST OF SKETCH AND COLORED MAPS 

PAGE 

Physical Map of Britain 4 

Forests and Swamps of Early Britain 9 

Celtic Tribes of Britain 15 

Roman Britain 24 

Settlements of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes 38 

Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms 55 

England divided into Bishoprics 56 

The Danelaw 62 

Principal Early Monasteries 77 

England divided into Shires 78 

Dominions of Cnut 86 

Campaigns of William the Conqueror 99 

Dominions of William the Conqueror 106 

Dominions of the Angevin Kings 146 

Ireland in the Middle Ages 169 

Scotland in the Thirteenth Century 223 

Wool-Raising Districts of England 232 

France according to the Treaty of Bretigny 242 

Counties and Towns of England in the Sixteenth Century .... 283 

Early Explorations 357 

Route of the Armada 365 

Parties in the Civil War 442 

France and the Netherlands 530 

England, France, and Spain in America 560 

India in the time of Clive 566 

India in the time of the Sepoy Rebellion 650 

Canada in 1904 666 

Australia and New Zealand in 1904 . 670 

Africa 672 

Territories of Great Britain, United States, and Germany .... 676 

England and Wales 688 

xiii 



GENEALOGICAL TABLES 

PAGE 

The Norman Kings .113 

West-Saxon Descent of the Later Kings . . . 121 

Henry II and his Sons . 145 

Claim of Edward III to the French Crown .......... 231 

Yorkist Claim to the Crown 270 

Descent of the Tudor Sovereigns 278 

Relationship of Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots 340 

Descent of James I 383 

The Stuart Family 3 8 4 

Descent of George I 5 2 9 

The Hanoverian Line of Kings . 543 

Descent of Queen Victoria 632 



LIST OF BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 



GENERAL WORKS 

Green, A Short History of the English People, I vol. Harper. 
Green, A History of the English People, 4 vols. Harper. 
Bright, A History of England, 5 vols. Longmans. 
Gardiner, A Student's History of England, 1 vol. Longmans. 
Traill, Social England, 6 vols. Putnam. 
Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols. Macmillan. 
Rhys, Celtic Britain, 1 vol. S. P. C. K. 
Scarth, Roman Britain, 1 vol. S. P. C. K. 
Allen, Saxon Britain, 1 vol. S. P. C. K. 
Hunt, Norman Britain, 1 vol. S. P. C. K. 

Wakeman, History of the Church of England, 1 vol. Macmillan. 
Montague, English Constitutional History, 1 vol. Longmans. 
Cheyney, English Social and Industrial History, 1 vol. Macmillan, 
McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, 3 vols. Harper. 
Robinson, History of Western Europe, 1 vol. Ginn and Company. 
Epochs of Modern History, 12 vols., referring to England. Longmans. 
Twelve English Statesmen, 12 vols. Macmillan. 
Kingsford, Henry V, 1 vol. Putnam. 
Firth, Cromwell, 1 vol. Putnam. 
Oman, Warwick the Kingmaker, 1 vol. Macmillan. 
Woodward, Expansion of the British Empire, I vol. Macmillan. 
Morris, Ireland, 1494-1898, 1 vol. Macmillan. 
Edwards, Wales, 1 vol. Putnam. 

Hume Brown, History of Scotland, 3 vols. Macmillan. 
Mackinder, Britain and the British Seas, 1 vol. Appleton. 
Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages, 1 vol. Putnam. 
Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, and Other Essays, I vol. Putnam. 
Macaulay, Essays on Burleigh, Bacon, Hampden, Milton, Temple, Clive^ 
Hastings, Chatham, and Pitt. Various editions. 

Other works are referred to in the bibliographical notes at the end of 
each chapter. 

xv 



xvi LIST OF BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING 



COLLECTIONS OF CONTEMPORARY SOURCES 

Cheyney, Readings t7i English History, i vol. Ginn and Company. 

Kendall, Source-Book of English History, I vol. Macmillan. 

Colby, Selections from the Sources of English History, I vol. Longmans. 

Lee, Source-Book of English History. I vol. Holt. 

Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, 
6 vols. University of Pennsylvania. [The separate numbers in this 
series referring to English history are The Early Refortnation Period 
in England ; Documents Illustrative of English Constitutional History ; 
England in the Age of Wycliff ; Manorial Documents ; Documents 
Concerning Towns and Gilds ; Documents Illustrative of Feudalism.} 

English History Illustrated from Original Sources, izij-ffsj, 5 vols. Black. 

Adams and Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History, 
1 vol. Macmillan. 

Other sources are given in the bibliographical notes at the end of each 
chapter. 

A full list of historical novels can be found in Nields. A Guide to the Besi 
Historical Novels and Tales. 1 vol. Putnam. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF 
ENGLAND 

CHAPTER I 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 

i. The British Isles. — The British Isles are cut off from the 
rest of Europe by the waters of the English Channel and the 
North Sea, and their people have therefore lived a life much 
apart from that of the other nations of Europe. The sea forms 
their natural frontier and has given as much independence to 
their history as it has detachment to their geographical position. 
Although in early times there were frequent invasions from the 
continent, as time has gone on and national unity been more 
completely attained, the island home of the English people has 
proved to be especially easy to defend. At several critical times 
good fortune has transformed the narrow seas 1 into a stormy 
and impassable barrier, and saved the island from conquest or 
from a difficult struggle on its own soil. 

In the few instances in which successful invasions and settle- 
ments have taken place they have been more gradual in their 
progress than they would have been if the invaders had come 
by land. The country has had time to absorb Saxon, Dane, and 

1 " The narrow seas," or " the British seas," is an expression applied to 
the English Channel and that part of the North Sea which lies between 
England and Holland. England formerly claimed to have control over 
these waters. 

RE , 



2 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Norman, and transform them into its own island race. The 
same is true of more peaceful influences. Many customs lying 
in the realms of language, law, trade, agriculture, and manufactures 
have been borrowed or learned by the English from foreigners. 
But they have received all these things slowly and gradually, and 
have thus assimilated them to their own national customs. 

Yet this isolation of England and its detachment from the con- 
tinent must not be exaggerated. The width of the intervening 
waters is not great. The Strait of Dover where it is narrowest is 
but twenty-one miles wide ; the Channel but one hundred and 
twenty and the North Sea but three hundred miles where they 
are broadest. From a point about half way along the southern 
coast of England to another more than one third of the way along 
the eastern coast there is a stretch in which the British and the 
continental shores are so near to one another that in all but the 
most unfavorable weather a few hours' sailing will bring a boat 
from one coast to the other. 

From a geological point of view it is only in recent ages that 
the British Isles have been separated by water from the continent 
of Europe. The ancient edge of the continent lay far to the west- 
ward of the present coast, and the seas around Great Britain and 
Ireland are comparatively shallow waters which have in a late 
geological period overspread the lower-lying lands. The earliest 
inhabitants of Britain came in all probability by land, not by 
water. It is scarcely more than an accident that the coasts of 
France, Belgium, and Holland are separated from those of Eng- 
land by a shallow sea rather than by a level plain. Both coasts 
are comparatively low and provided with numerous harbors. 
Hence the countries on the two sides of the narrow seas have 
always been easily accessible to one another. They are natural 
neighbors, much alike in the character of their coast, surface, 
productions, and even population. 

There has been much besides these geographical features through 
all the later centuries of history to bring about intercourse between 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 3 

England and the mainland. Scarcely any great influence that 
affected the continental countries failed to make at least some 
impression on England. As its history is studied it will be found 
that along with its distinctiveness and marked national peculiari- 
ties it has had much in common with the other countries of Europe 
and has been constantly influenced by them. 

Within the group of the British Isles the geographical forma- 
tion tends to separate Scotland, Ireland, and Wales from England 
and from one another. The long, narrow shape of the principal 
island made union of all its inhabitants into one nation difficult. 
The English and Scotch at its two ends naturally grew up into 
two separate peoples, and the mountains of Wales long kept the 
race which inhabited that region separate. The Irish Sea and 
St. George's Channel separated Ireland and its inhabitants from 
all of these. 

Of these four principal divisions of the islands England is 
marked out by nature to be the most important. Its territory 
is a continuous, unbroken stretch, filling far the largest part of 
the larger island ; it is provided with a greater variety of natural 
resources ; and it is nearer to the continent of Europe. England 
has therefore always been in advance of the other divisions of the 
British Isles, and their history has been largely dependent on hers. 

In ancient times and the middle ages the situation of England 
was on the distant verge of the world as it was then known. 
Since the discovery of America and of sea routes around the 
world, her position has been much more central and advanta- 
geous. In early times, therefore, England was a comparatively 
inconspicuous country in Europe ; in modern times she has played 
a vastly more important part. Her position as an island and her 
location in the far northwest of Europe have given her a particu- 
larly favorable opportunity to develop commerce and to found 
a colonial empire. 

Yet England is a small country. Its area, with Wales, is 
58,320 square miles, — about equal to Scotland and Ireland 



4 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

together, somewhat larger than the state of Pennsylvania, and 
almost exactly the same as the state of Michigan. It is 365 
miles in length from north to south, and 280 miles in its greatest 
breadth from east to west. 

2 . The Coasts and Rivers of England. — That part of the coast 
of England which lies nearest to the continent is made conspic- 
uous by the long line of white chalk cliffs that face the sea. 
They rise two or three hundred feet above the narrow strip of 
stony strand at the edge of the water, and extend for many miles 
along the southeastern and southern coast. These white cliffs 
are visible in clear weather from the opposite shore where the 
Channel is narrowest, and from far out at sea where the waters 
are wider. They have served as a landmark to friend and foe 
in all ages, and the old poetic name of Albion x is said to be due 
to the white front which Britain turns toward the continent. 

Although much of the coast is cliff-bound, there are at least 
equal stretches of low-lying shore, especially on the eastern coast. 
Both the cliffs and the low shores are cut by many bays and har- 
bors. Most of these are the mouths of rivers which have been 
converted into estuaries by the gradual sinking of the coast which 
has been in progress for long ages. 2 This subsidence has allowed 
the sea to flow part way up the courses of the rivers, filling with 
its waters the lower reaches of their valleys. 3 Harbors are therefore 
as numerous as the rivers ; there is in fact no considerable stretch 
on the whole coast of England without its harbor. Especially is 

1 From Latin albus, white. Shakespeare describes England as 

that pale, that white-faced shore, 
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides 
And coops from other lands her islanders. 

King John, Act II, sc. I. 

2 Even within the last few centuries several hundred square miles of 
territory, including the sites of some thirty-five towns and villages, have 
gradually crumbled and slipped into the sea or been submerged by the 
advancing tides. 

8 See illustration of a small harbor on p. 11. 




^K^iiC iM ,<m^\ -3TV 4-ifi; 



PHYSICAL FEATURES ^\f] 
of the 
BRITISH ISLES. 

50 100 150 



la^ 



Scale of Miles 



& 

^x"^ 1 



■J LongitKde East 6 from Greenwich 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 5 

this true of the southern and eastern coasts, although even on the 
more rugged western seaboard the deep and broad mouths of the 
Severn and the Mersey make possible such fine harbors as those 
of Bristol and Liverpool. 

The rivers not only form harbors at their mouths but give 
access by water far into the interior of the country. At least they 
did so in earlier times when vessels were small. Of several of 
them the lower courses are navigable even by the larger vessels 
of the present day. The Thames, the Severn, and the Trent are 
long rivers draining the very center of the country. With their 
tributaries and with the smaller rivers, they make a complete net- 
work of water courses. This abundance of streams has been used 
in modern times to feed a canal system intersecting the country in 
all directions. The more rapid streams also provide water power. 

3. Surface. — The cliffs which line so much of the coast give 
a false impression of the land that lies behind them. Much the 
greater part of England is a level or but slightly hilly country. 
It may be divided, as far as its surface is concerned, into three 
regions, — the southeast, the center, and the north and west. 
The first of these, covering almost two thirds of England', is undu- 
lating though intersected by several ranges of soft rounded chalk 
hills about five hundred or six hundred feet high. This was the 
earliest part of Britain to be inhabited by man, and until the last 
two centuries continued to be by far the most populous, wealthy, 
and influential. The level and slightly rolling lands which make 
up the greater part of it are fertile and in the main devoted to 
agriculture. Its open, treeless hills, downs or wolds, covered with 
soft, springy turf, are generally utilized for sheep pasture. 

If a traveler passes from this region of smooth surfaces, gentle 
slopes, and moderate ridges northward or westward, he descends 
into the midlands or " great central plain" of England. This 
plain extends from the Bristol Channel northward to Liverpool 
and northeastward through the vale of York to the coast at Durham, 
broken only here and there by a few groups of rugged hills. In 



6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

early times it was thinly populated and backward compared with 
the region already described. It is now, except the region sur- 
rounding London, the richest, most active, and vastly the most 
populous part of England. Around its edges lie the coal fields ; 
in it are the great manufacturing towns ; it includes Liverpool 
and other great seaports, and contains stretches of country 
famous for their grazing and dairy products. Its rivers have 
been connected by canals; it is traversed in all directions by 
railroads and tunneled by mines; and in many parts its large 
towns almost, touch one another. A district lying west of Bir- 
mingham in this region is known as the "black country." It lies 
upon a coal field, and is dotted with iron furnaces and manu- 
facturing establishments, overspread with cinder heaps, blackened 
by smoke, and almost stripped of its vegetation by the fumes and 
soot. It is one great workshop, where labor goes on day and 
night, above ground and below. Other sections are devoted to 
equally active but less smoky industries, and not far away rich 
dairying districts form a peaceful contrast to the manufacturing 
towns. 

Beyond this central plain rise the mountainous districts, — the 
high moors of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall in the southwest ; 
Wales in the west ; the Lake District in the northwest ; and the 
Pennine Chain, rising from the midlands and extending north 
into Scotland. The population of the moors and mountain val- 
leys is necessarily sparse and their industries are simple. But on 
the edge of the mountain ranges where they drop to the plain or 
the shore, the greater number of the mines of tin, copper, and 
lead lie, and here there are several large cities and a thicker 
population. 

4. Climate. — The aspect of England compared with the con- 
tinental countries is remarkably green. It is made so by the 
rich growth of grass and other herbage, and by the verdure and 
undergrowth of the woods. This luxuriance of growth is due to 
two causes, — the frequent rains and fogs and the mild climate. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 7 

There is often a superabundance of wet weather, especially in 
the west ; a drought is very unusual. The weather is seldom very 
hot in summer or very cold in winter, although England is in the 
same latitude as Labrador in America and as central Russia on 
the continent of Europe. Plowing can be done in much of Eng- 
land as early as February and as late as November. These two 
conditions, the large rainfall and the mild and equable climate, 
are due to the position of the British Isles. They lie in the path 
of a current of southwest winds which blow more than half the 
days of the year. These winds give the surface waters of the 
ocean a set toward the northeast, and bring the warmer waters 
of southern latitudes to the western and southern shores of 
Great Britain and Ireland. The southwest winds also carry this 
warmth and the moisture of the ocean far inland, moderating 
the cold of winter and causing frequent rains and fogs. 1 

The reputation of England as a " foggy isle " is, however, partly 
due to the peculiar climate of London, which is situated in the 
valley of the Thames and particularly subject to fogs. Foreigners 
who spend most of their time there get a false idea of the whole 
country. The downs and uplands are often bathed in clear sun- 
shine and blown over by crisp breezes while the river valleys are 
covered with a mantle of fog. On the moors and mountains the 
weather is often severe, notwithstanding the moderating influences 
just mentioned; and all over the island there are occasional 
though seldom prolonged periods of snow and freezing in winter. 
The weather is changeable from day to day, and the coasts are 
liable to sudden and violent storms. 

5. Forests and Swamps. — In primeval times a large part of 
the island was covered with thick forests. They stretch 2d dark 
and impenetrable over much of the great central plain ; and even 

2 The warmer waters which bathe the shores of the British Isles are 
sometimes described as an extension of the Gulf Stream; but this is a 
mistake. The Gulf Stream disappears by the time it reaches the middle 
of the Atlantic. 



8 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



in the more open eastern rolling country many of the upland 
regions and most of the river valleys were wooded. Whole sec- 
tions of the country were separated from the rest by these forests. 
The largest forest in England covered the district known as the 
Weald, and stretched from Kent almost one third of the way 
across the island to the westward. The word " Kent," as well as 
the syllable " Win " in Winchester, is a Celtic word meaning an 
opening in the forest. Sherwood, where Robin Hood and his 
merry men hunted the deer ; Arden, where Rosalind walked ; and 

many other forests of later 

Hfe 



times were only surviving 
fragments of these wild, 
primitive woodlands. 

Great swamps filled the 
lower courses of many of 
the rivers. The " Fens " 
formed a broad, marshy 
expanse of several hundred 
square miles in the east 
of England. They were 
scarcely above the level of 
the sea, and formed a wilderness practically impassable and unin- 
habitable, except here and there where low hills of gravelly soil 
rose above the water. This region and several similar morasses 
were even wilder and more impenetrable than the forests. 

Thus in early times but a small part of the land was open to 
habitation. Strips along the seacoast, steep hillsides bordering the 
river courses, bare moors and hilltops, occasional open stretches 
of the rolling country, formed the only dwelling places for early 
men. Even these open districts were divided from one another, 
hemmed in and bounded by the vast forests and swamps. The 
existence of the widespreading forests and fens exercised a deep 
influence on the early history of the country, and affected it 
strongly even in later times. The clearing and draining of the 




An Old Oak still standing in Sherwood 
Forest 




English Verdure, Aldenham Park, Hertfordshire 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 



- 9 




4r\ 




L 



life. \ % K^ : ^ )%'">■> : " he H>K, ■' The-ltedfd f 




Forests and Swamps of Early England 



10 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

forest and swamp land for human occupation was the gradual 
work of civilization through many long centuries. Roman engi- 
neers and soldiers, industrious monks of the middle ages, villein 
farmers and enterprising landowners of successive races contrib- 
uted their share to its accomplishment, and it has only been 
completed within the last two hundred years. 

6. Natural Products. — There is scarcely one of the familiar 
mineral substances which is not found in greater or less quantities 
in England, and most of them are worked to some extent. Tin 
is the characteristic product of Cornwall in the southwest, and has 
always attracted attention, being a comparatively rare metal. It 
was highly valued in early ages. Mixed with copper it forms 
bronze, a metal less difficult to work and yet capable of taking a 
better edge than either the copper or the tin of which it is com- 
posed, and therefore very useful before men had learned to work 
iron. Lead is found and mined in the same region. Clay suffi- 
ciently good for brick-making is abundant, and finer clay, suitable 
for pottery, exists in several localities, especially in that part of 
the central plain which has come to be known as the "Potteries." 

The most important mineral products of England in modern 
times are, however, her iron and coal. Iron ore exists plentifully 
and has been worked wherever fuel was found near by. Wood 
or charcoal was the earliest form of fuel used for this and for all 
other purposes for which fuel was needed. It was abundant and 
cheap. In time, however, wood became scarce, cities grew larger, 
needing a more concentrated fuel ; the process of smelting iron 
by means of coal was discovered and made ever- increasing 
demands ; and steam power was adopted for many uses. Coal 
therefore became more and more important, till it has come to 
be the basis of the prosperity, if not of the very existence, of 
England's teeming population. 

The bare uplands and hills are especially suited to sheep rais- 
ing, and England has therefore always been famous for its sheep 
and wool. The lower pasture grounds, with their grass kept 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF ENGLAND 



II 



green by the frequent rains, are equally well suited to the graz- 
ing of cattle. All the familiar grains can be raised except Indian 
corn, for which the climate is too cool. Nor is it warm enough 
for grapes, tomatoes, and some other fruits and vegetables of 
temperate but sunnier climates. These can only be ripened 
along the southwestern coast. On the other hand, the east of 
England is particularly suited to wheat. 

Fish are abundant off the coasts, especially in the North Sea, 
and fishing villages have been scattered along the shores through all 
periods of English history. The nucleus of many a large modern 
town is to be found in a little fishing settlement of earlier times. 



->- j~~--V 



<U 1 rw-'l^W 




Staithes Harbor, Yorkshire : a Typical Fishing Village on the Coast 



General Reading. — Mill, H. R., International Geography, chap. xii. This 
is the best general description of the British Isles. Mackinder, H. S., 
Britain and the British Seas, chaps, i, ii, xi, xix. These chapters on 
various physical features are much less technical and difficult to understand 
than the remainder of this book. The influence of the geography of the 
country on the settlements and conquests is brought out in many places in 
Green, J. R., The Making of England, and in George, H. B., The Relations 
of Geography and History, chap. x. The influence of the resources of the 
country on its prosperity is discussed in Cunningham and McArthur, 
Outlines of English Industrial History, chap. ii. There is much picturesque 
description of the Fens in Kingsley, Hereward. Longmans' A tla s gives 
several good maps of England, showing its physical features. 



CHAPTER II 



PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 



7. Prehistoric Races. — Mankind lived in Britain for unnum- 
bered centuries before any contemporary written records were 
made. In the chalk districts, tunnels and pits are still traceable 
where men of a race earlier than any of which we have recorded 
history searched for clear lumps of flint out 
of which to make arrowheads and other 
implements. In one of these tunnels a 
pick made of a deer's horn was recently 
found. The imprint of the fingers of the 
man who had laid it down, probably thou- 
sands of years ago, was still visible on the 
chalk-covered handle, and pick marks could 
be distinguished on the walls. Vast num- 
bers of such remains have been found, as 
well as ornaments, weapons, bones of ani- 
Miner's Pick, made of a mals broken or marked by man, and por- 
Deer'sAntler, found in tions of human skeletons. Burial mounds, 
- foundations of houses, and groups of stand- 
ing stones remain to prove the existence of 
these early races. Even the modern names 
of some rivers and of certain localities come down from the 
languages of men of whom we have no other record. 

But knowledge obtained from such remains is slight, uncertain, 
and vague. Its study is a part of archaeology rather than of his- 
tory, and the men of whom only such knowledge is preserved are 
therefore described as prehistoric races. We scarcely know more 




Workings at Grimes' 
Graves, Suffolk 



PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 13 

than that several such races existed successively in England ; that 
they occupied principally the hilly regions, where they were more 
secure from wild beasts and where the soil, if poorer, was easier 
to cultivate ; and that they used only stone and bronze weapons 
and implements. 

It is customary to describe these prehistoric men as of three 
races. First were the paleolithic men, or men of the rough-stone 
age, who used rude weapons, ornaments, and implements of stone 
and bone. They probably lived in caves and depended for their 
subsistence on the wild beasts they captured and the vegetable 
products they found growing wild. Next were the neolithic men, 
or men of the polished-stone age, who used the well-shaped 



Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain 

stone, bone, and horn implements that are frequently found, and 
probably lived in some kind of artificial buildings, raised crops, 
kept domestic animals, knew how to weave cloth and to make 
pottery, and perhaps traded with other peoples. They built and 
deposited their dead in long burial mounds such as those 
whose remains still exist. They were small men, perhaps of the 
same race as is now represented by the Basques of Spain. Later 
than these came a race who knew the use of bronze, who buried 
their dead in small, round burial mounds, and who were probably 
the builders of Stonehenge, Kit's Coty House, and the other 
mysterious groups of standing stones which are found scattered 
through England. These are known as men of the bronze age, 
and may have been the earliest immigrants of the race dominant 
in Britain when our written knowledge of it begins. 



14 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



8. Caesar's Invasion and Description of Britain, 55-54 B.C 

During the fourth, third, and second centuries before Christ, 
occasional travelers or merchants from the civilized countries 
around the Mediterranean Sea are said to have brought home 
some knowledge of the island of Britain and its people, but their 
accounts are now lost or give but little information. With the 
middle of the century before the birth of Christ, however, our 
written history of Britain really begins. Just at this time Julius 
Caesar was the Roman governor of Gaul, the country known in 

modern times as France. 
He seems to have come 
to the conclusion either 
that the Britons were giv- 
ing aid to his restless sub- 
jects in Gaul, or that their 
conquest would carry still 
higher his fame and for- 
tune. He therefore deter- 
mined to invade the island. 
Late in the summer of 
the year 55 B.C., taking 
with him two legions, 
he made an attack on the southeast coast of Britain, and after 
active fighting with the natives secured a camping place and began 
foraging. As the autumn was far advanced, however, he soon 
withdrew and began arrangements for a more vigorous campaign 
the next year. 

By the succeeding July he had prepared a force of five legions, 
that is, some twenty thousand footmen and two thousand cavalry, 
with full equipment, and these were embarked and safely landed 
on the British coast near the modern town of Deal. At first no 
resistance was made by the Britons, but as the Romans advanced 
inland their progress was contested daily, and involved constant 
skirmishing. There was at that time a confederacy of the British 




Kit's Coty House : a Prehistoric Group of 
Standing Stones in Kent 



PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN I 5 




The Celtic Tribes of Britain 



16 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

tribes under one of their chieftains, whose fortified ramp or village 
was at Verulamium, just north of London, near the modern St. 
Albans. The Romans succeeded in breaking up this confeder- 
ation and eventually in obtaining the submission of the chief 
leaders of the Britons. By this time apparently Caesar had dis- 
covered that it would be impossible completely to subjugate the 
country. He therefore merely took .hostages and imposed a 
small tribute on the various British tribes through whose districts 
he had passed, then hastened to his ships and took his army back 
to Gaul. He had been in Britain altogether about three months. 
After Caesar's departure the Britons seldom sent the tribute and 
no attempt was made to enforce its payment. As a later Roman 
historian remarks, Caesar discovered Britain for his countrymen, 
he did not gain it for them. Nevertheless his campaigns pre- 
vented any possible alliance on the part of the Britons with the 
Gauls, and the account which he wrote of them made the Romans 
familiar with the distant island. They give us also our real start- 
ing point for a knowledge of the history of England. 

9* v£h£~Celtic Race. — The greater part of the population of 
Britain at the time of Caesar's military explorations seems to have 
belonged to the widespread Celtic race, the still earlier inhabitants 
having been absorbed or destroyed by them. There were, how- 
ever, several branches of the Celtic inhabitants, — the Brythons or 
Britons proper, who occupied the southeastern part of the island ; 
the Goidels or Gaels, who occupied the districts farther north and 
west ; and perhaps the Picts and Caledonians in the far north. The 
first of these, those nearest the continent, were the most cultured. 
They were quite similar to the Gauls in appearance, customs, and 
language. It was with them only that Caesar came in contact, and 
of them only that we have any full knowledge. It was they also 
who became a permanent element in the population of England 
and Wales, the Gaels being represented in modern times by the 
Irish and the western Highlanders of Scotland, and the Picts 
surviving probably in the eastern and northern Highlands. 



PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN \J 

10. Customs of the Britons. —The Britons were quite numer- 
ous, forming a thick population in the habitable parts of the 
country. They lived in small villages or hamlets, obtaining their 
subsistence by raising cows, swine, sheep, and goats, and by cul- 
tivating the soil. They raised wheat, oats, and barley. They 
had large flocks of sheep and many small horned cattle, like the 
modern Kerry cows, and made much use of milk and cheese. 
Their houses were built like wigwams, with conical roofs thatched 
with branches, ferns, or straw. 

They had advanced beyond barbarism in many lines. They wove 
linen and woolen cloth in bright stripes and squares like Scotch 
plaid, and wore as ornaments gold, silver, and beaded buckles, 
necklaces, bracelets, and torques or 
collars. The mining and export of 
tin were carried on in the southwest, 
and iron ore was smelted in several 
parts of the country and worked into 
implements and weapons. Pottery of Coin of Cunobeline, Chief of 
a very rude sort was made. Coins of the Catuvellauni, Trino- 

, , ., j j . bantes, and Iceni, about 

gold, silver, and copper were used to a ,. AfS 
° rxr 5-40 a.d. 

small extent, especially after Caesar's 

invasion, when there came to be more commercial intercourse with 

the continent. A large number of coins have been found with the 

name of Cunobeline, a prince with dominions in the eastern part-of 

the country, who is familiar in literature as Shakespeare's Cymbeline. 

The Britons were divided into a large number of tribes or clans, 
each occupying its own region and each under a petty chief or 
king. No union existed among them, except when a chieftain 
conquered and subjected some surrounding tribes or when a tem- 
porary alliance was made to resist an invasion. Such alliances 
soon broke up again and the tribes fell into their old co'ndition 
of disunion. 

Wars among the British tribes were frequent, and permanent 
fortifications were kept up. Elevated and easily defensible spots 




l8 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

were chosen, earthworks thrown up, always in a circular form, 
and palisades placed upon these. Such a fortification was called 
a dim, and London and the names of many other places still pre- 
serve that termination in varying forms. The Roman invaders 
were much struck with the skill -of the British in the use of their 
war chariots. These were low, two-wheeled carts drawn by a 
pair of their small horses or ponies, the hubs of the wheels being 
provided with short, straight, scythe-shaped blades extending out 
on both sides. Two men rode in each with a driver. The char- 
iots were driven rapidly up and down the enemy's lines, striving 
to throw them into confusion or to find a place of entrance 








A so-called " Celtic Bridge " on Dartmoor 

among them. If such a breach was found, the fighting men 
leaped out and fought on foot, while the chariots were driven out, 
and retired to a distance, ready to take the warriors in again if 
necessary. Swords, short knives, bows and arrows, and spears 
were also used in fighting. 

The Britons had many gods and were extremely superstitious, 
watching for signs and . omens, dreading fairies and elves, and 
practicing curious rites and ceremonies. Every neighborhood 
had its sacred spring, rock, tree or other place of supernatural 
significance. Closely connected with religion was the existence 
of the class of Druids. This was a body or order of men into 
which admission was gained only by a long course of preparation, 



PREHISTORIC AND CELTIC BRITAIN 19 

consisting principally of committing to memory great bodies of 
verse, in which custom, law, morals, and religion were embodied. 
The Druids, therefore, were consulted on all important questions 
of law or policy. They were free from taxation and military serv- 
ice, and great deference was paid to their opinions and advice. 
They had charge of all sacrifices, and in serious cases put human 
beings to death to satisfy the anger of the gods. The oak tree and 
the mistletoe, which sometimes grows upon it, were considered by 
them as especially sacred and as having mystic powers of healing. 

General Reading. — wkTGHT, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon. 
Windle, Life in Early Britain. Both of these books refer to the 
periods of the next three chapters also. Rhys, J., Celtic Britain, is another 
small book on this period. Large works are, Elton, C, Origins of English 
History, and Guest, E., Origines Celtics. 

Contemporary Sources. — Caesar himself describes his invasion of 
Britain in his Commentaries, Book IV, chaps, xx-xxxviii ; Book V, chaps, 
vii-xxiii (translated in Bonn's Library). Short extracts from Caesar and 
several other ancient writers, including an interesting description of the 
tin mines by Diodorus Siculus, are given in Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 11-17-, 
from Caesar and Tacitus in Colby, Selections from the Sources, Nos. 1 and 2; 
and from Tacitus in Kendall, Source-Book, No. I. Still others are in 
Cheyney, Readings in English History, Nos. 7-13. 

Special Topics. — In addition to the references given above, (1) a full 
discussion of the early races will be found in Ripley, Races of Europe, 
chap, xii; (2) a short description of the Druids in Traill, Social England, 
Vol. I, chap, i, pp. 30-35 ; (3) of the social life of the Britons, ibid., pp. 102- 
114; and (4) of their military system and other customs, ibid., pp. 44-52. 
(These page numbers and those used throughout this book refer to the 
ordinary edition of Traill; the illustrated edition has much new and good 
material on these early periods in addition to the illustrations. The chap- 
ters and sections are the same in the two editions, and although the pages 
are different, the paragraphs devoted to the same subjects can readily be 
found.) (5) The Roman knowledge of the geography of Britain is given in 
Tacitus, Agricola, chaps, x-xiii, in Kendall, Source-Book, No. 1. 







CHAPTER III 
ROMAN BRITAIN 

ii. The Roman Conquest. — During the century succeeding 
Caesar's invasion the Britons were advancing slowly in civilization 
and becoming more wealthy by trade with the continent, but they 
did not succeed in forming any better national union. As a result 
of the frequent internal dissensions, one exiled British chieftain after 
another appealed to the Romans for assistance. Opportunity was 
thus added to the ever-present inclination of the Romans to extend 
their conquests. Various motives of policy, however, delayed siich 
an attack and the Britons retained their barbarian freedom. 

The emperor Claudius finally determined to enter upon the 
conquest of Britain. He organized an army of four legions and 
placed it under an experienced general. In the summer of 
a.d. 43 the army set sail and landed in Britain, where the em- 
peror joined them after the campaign. A series of small battles was 
fought in the country along the river Thames till the intrenched 
camp of the most powerful of the British chieftains at Camulo- 
dunum, the modern Colchester, was captured. This broke the 
resistance of the native tribes of the southeast. Britain was im- 
mediately organized as a Roman province, with a governor and 
a regularly established military force and civil administration. 
A succession of governors, partly by wars and partly by friendly 
alliances, gradually extended the Roman power and government 
all the way to the coast of Wales and far up toward the Highlands 
of Scotland. This conquest was completed by a.d. 82. 

Forty years of warfare naturally included a number of hard con- 
tests. The Britons were not easily conquered. Caractacus, who 

20 



ROMAN BRITAIN 21 

had led the first resistance, escaped the pursuit of the Romans by 
taking refuge with one unconquered tribe after another. These 
he incited successively to resistance. After nine years of struggle 
he was betrayed into the hands of the Roman governor and sent 
with his wife and daughter to be shown in a triumphal spectacle 
at Rome. The nobility of his bearing and the renown of his 
heroism extorted the admiration of the emperor Claudius and 
he was allowed to remain with his family in practical freedom 
at Rome. 

After the capture of Caractacus the island of Mona remained 
for twenty years a refuge for unconquered natives and a gathering 
place for the Druids, who exerted their influence to prolong the 
national resistance. All the available troops, therefore, in the 
year a.d. 6i, were gathered together, taken by the governor to 
the nearest point on the coast, and ferried across in flat-bottomed 
boats. The Roman historian Tacitus gives a vivid account of 
the attack, describing the native warriors, the wild British women, 
the praying Druids, and the superstitious dread of the Romans. 
But the natives were finally attacked and conquered, the sacred 
groves cut down, and a garrison established there. 1 

There were several insurrections of the half-subjugated Britons. 
The most serious of these was that of the Iceni under their queen, 
Boadicea, 2 in the year a.d. 6i. The Iceni, who occupied the dis- 
trict between the Fen country and the east coast, were one of those 
tribes which had entered willingly into a dependent alliance with 
the Romans. On the death of their king, however, the Roman 
officials treated his dominions as conquered and seized his prop- 
erty. His widow resisted. The Roman governor then scourged 
her in public, sold other members of the family into slaverv, and 
subjected her daughters to insult. The pressure of Roman taxa- 
tion, restrictions on their accustomed freedom, and the abuses of 

1 Annales, Book XIV, chap. xxx. (Translated in Bonn's Library.) 

2 Her name should properly be spelled Boudicca, but Boadicea hof 
long been the most familiar form. 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

officials had already roused widespread discontent, and now the 
Iceni rose in wild revolt and some of the neighboring tribes joined 
them. The bulk of the Roman army was away on the frontier, and 
the scattered detachments of troops which had been left behind 
were destroyed by the natives in the first days of the rising. The 
Ninth Legion marched against them, but was defeated, and the 
three largest towns of the province, occupied by Romans and 
peaceful Britons, were ravaged and their population massacred. 
But it was only a short time till the governor had reorganized his 
forces, defeated the rebellious natives in a great battle, and pun- 
ished all those who had been responsible for the uprising. Boadi- 
cea killed herself by taking poison. 
yy N 12. Romanizing of the Province. — The work of pacification 
and organization, as was usual in Roman provinces, followed close 
upon the conquest. Much of this was due to the great Roman 
governor Julius Agricola. During his administration, which ex- 
tended over seven years, from 78 to 85 a.d., he put down resist- 
ance wherever it showed itself, but exercised great kindness when 
submission had once been made. He established permanent mil- 
itary garrisons in skillfully chosen localities, selected his lower 
officials with great care, and forced them to deal justly with the 
people. He encouraged the use of the Latin language, the adop- 
tion of the Roman dress, the building of temples, public baths 
and forums, and private dwelling houses, and the adoption by the 
people of the civilized Roman ways. When the province was 
reduced to complete order he made a successful campaign far up 
into Caledonia to break the power of the northern tribes, which 
had from those mountainous regions repeatedly invaded the more 
civilized part of the island. 

Thus within little more than a generation Britain had been 
brought completely under Roman government and had received 
the usual provincial organization, for military, financial, political, 
and other purposes. A large number of new inhabitants had 
come to settle within it, and the old Celtic inhabitants had largely 



ROMAN BRITAIN 



23 



adopted the customs of their rulers. For more than three 
hundred years Britain was a comparatively peaceful and orderly 
Roman province, though the outlying portions to the north and 
west continued to be troubled from time to time with risings or 
with invasions of barbarians from outside the border. 

13. Growth of Roman Towns in Britain. — Britain under the 
Romans, during these three centuries, presented a striking con- 
trast to its condition while it had been still occupied only by the 










« 





Remains of Public Buildings of the Roman City of Uriconium 

native Celtic tribes. One of the chief differences was the prev- 
alence of city life. The cities which grew up had in many cases 
a military origin. Three legions were regularly stationed in Britain. 
The Second, which was known as the "Augustan," had its head- 
quarters at /sea, or Caerleon, in the south of Wales ; the Sixth, 
the " Victorious," at Eboracum, the modern York ; the Twentieth, 
the "Valiant- victorious," at Deva, the modern Chester. The 
Ninth, the "Spanish," served in Britain during the early period 
of conquest, but disappears from the records, either used up in the 
constant petty warfare or overwhelmed in some calamity which has 
not been recorded. Detachments from these legions were scattered 
in numberless smaller or larger posts throughout the country. 



24 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The Roman military garrisons were permanent stations to which 
recruits were sent from time to time from all parts of the Empire. 
They were thus gradually transformed into towns or cities, inhab- 
ited, in addition to the enlisted soldiers, by a population engaged 
in trade and handicrafts, by officeholders, and by those soldiers 
who had fulfilled their term of service and settled down with 
their families in the neighborhood to which they had become 
attached. 

Many settlers from other parts of the Roman Empire, not only 
those engaged in the military and civil service of the govern- 
ment, but merchants, manufacturers, shopkeepers, and persons 
occupied in other capacities, came with their families to live in 
Britain, and furnished additional population for the cities spread- 
ing around the military camps. In this and other ways grew 
up more than a hundred and fifty towns or cities the location 
of which can be identified either by records of that time or by 
ruined remains still existing. The sites of some of these are 
occupied by modern cities ; some are now represented by mere 
villages or by a few mounds or pieces of wall in the open country. 
The location of a great many of the Roman towns is shown by 
the termination "caster," "cester," or " Chester " in the modern 
names. All these forms represent the Latin word castra, a camp, 
and almost invariably show that a military post was established 
there in Roman times. 1 Some others, as Lincoln, have the termi- 
nation from the Latin word colonia. In most of these places and 
in many others remains of Roman buildings 1 still exist which show 
that they were in Roman times not merely military camps, as 
might be inferred from the names, but populous towns with public 
buildings, temples, shops, and dwelling houses. The walled por- 
tion of the towns was small, but extensive suburbs probably 
surrounded them. 

1 Instances of this are Lancaster, Doncaster, Ancaster, Tadcaster, Bran- 
< uster, Chester, Chichester, Cirencester, Leicester, Gloucester, Dorchester, 
llchester, Manchester, Rochester, Silchester, and many others. 



from Greenback 



ROMAN BRITAIN 



Scale of Miles 




ROMAN BRITAIN 



25 



14. Roman Building. — The walls of these towns, as in all 
Roman building, were massive, provided with towers, gateways, 
and guardrooms. The materials for building were largely stone 
and mortar, the stones on the outer surface being almost 
invariably squared and carefully fitted together. Along with the 
dressed stones were used a great many bricks or tiles of burned 
clay, longer and broader, but thinner, than modern bricks. Both 
on stones and bricks the mason's or brickmaker's signs or initials 
were often placed. Inscribed tablets were also very commonly 
used for memorials. From these inscriptions much of our knowl- 
edge of Roman Brit- 
ain is obtained. The 
materials used by the 
Romans in their 
buildings were so 
good that many of 
their structures still 
exist after almost two 
thousand years of 
neglect and exposure. 
The most famous 
Roman structure in 
Britain was the wall 




§ f/V.fi^:i; 



Roman Arch still standing in the City of Lincoln 

built by the emperor Hadrian from sea to sea across a narrow 
part of the island, to form a line of defense against the turbulent 
northern tribes. It was more than seventy miles long, extending 
from the river Tyne just below Newcastle to the shore of the 
Solway Firth on the western coast. It was about eight feet thick 
and twelve to fifteen feet high. Some eighteen permanent walled 
camps were distributed along its course, "mile-castles" served as 
places of defense for smaller bodies of troops, and small watch tur- 
rets were placed at even more frequent intervals. A military road 
ran along the southern side of the wall, and a line of earthworks 
and a ditch were carried parallel to it. A somewhat similar line 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of defense was constructed at the still narrower place between the 
Firth and the Clyde, but was not successfully held, and the region 
between these two walls was always debatable ground between the 
provincials and the barbarians to the north of the province. The 
Wall of Hadrian was the wonder of successive races of invaders, 
and even to-day in its remains gives impressive testimony to the 
power and boldness of the Romans. 

15. Rural Life. — Scattered through Roman Britain were many 
villas or country houses, whose remains show wealth, luxury, and 
refined tastes on the part of the owners. These were probably 




• 






; 3k 






r ,,,,,- 

-,-_- 

--'" ;-,- 



A Part of the Roman Wall 



* 



lords of large estates which were worked by slaves or dependent 
tenants. Some of these villas were so large as to have readily 
accommodated a household of a hundred or more persons. The 
mosaic or figured stone floors and the frescoed walls and ceilings 
of these houses were often ornate and beautiful. Warmth, so dear 
to sun-loving Italians, was obtained in the larger buildings by 
laying the tiled floors over vaulted passages, through which warm 
air was made to pass from furnaces. Remains are also found of 
villages in which the native laboring population lived, using 
Roman pottery and other such utensils, but apparently very poor, 
and probably enjoying but little of Roman civilization, except the 
good order of the country. 



ROMAN BRITAIN 27 

16. Roads. — The cities and military camps were connected 
by roads extending over the length and breadth of the island. 
The Romans built and kept up their roads in all the provinces of 
the Empire with the greatest care and skill, and many of those 
constructed in Britain in the second, third, and fourth centuries 
still serve as the foundations of modern roads, or are visible as 
tracks across uncultivated downs and moors. The main roads 
were constructed of several layers of prepared stones and mortar, 
and were intended primarily for military purposes. Others were 
cross roads for more ordinary traveling and for trading uses, and 
still others were mere private roads or rural byways. 

Several roads leading from the seaports on the southeast 
coast united at the city of Durovemu?n, the modern Canterbury, 
from which a broad road led away over the high ground, through 
the modern city of Rochester, to the Thames opposite London. 
Here was a bridge across the river. From London four great 
roads diverged like a fan. One passed westward and south- 
westward through the richest and most populous district of 
Roman Britain ; the second extended northwestward into the 
midlands, and thence to Wales and the far north ; the third road 
ran due north to York and on up into Scotland ; the fourth 
extended northeastward to the eastern coast. Other main roads 
extended across the island, joining these and leading from one 
of the principal cities or seaports to another. 

These main highways were but the principal threads of the great 
network of roads by which all parts of the province were made 
easy of access. Along them were scattered the cities, towns, and 
villas, and a constant stream of trade and travel must have flowed 
in the wake of the military marching and transport for which they 
were primarily intended. 

17. Industries. — Iron ore was smelted in a number of the 
forest regions of the southeast andttie central plain, and lead was 
mined in Cornwall for use in the province and for export to the 
continent. Copper, tin, silver, and gold were mined to some 



2 S A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

extent. Great quantities of pottery were made in various dis- 
tricts where suitable clay existed. The method of manufacture 
of some kinds of ware has become a lost art, never rediscovered 
since Roman times. Articles made of glass are found very widely, 
though it is not certain that they were manufactured in Britain. 
Indeed, all these articles were frequently imported into Britain 
from Italy and from other provinces. 

The Romans considered Britain one of the great grain-growing 
and cattle-raising provinces of the Empire, and occasionally wheat 
made its way from that province all the way to Rome. On the 
other hand, the cherry, the walnut, the elm, perhaps the beech, 
and other trees, as well as some new breeds of domestic animals, 
were introduced by the Romans. The Roman landowners intro- 
duced also certain methods of cultivation, customary arrangements 
of payment from their tenants, and divisions of the farming land 
which survived into far later centuries. 

Notwithstanding this progress in farming, the occupations of 
the people of Britain which distinguished the Roman period from 
earlier and later times were manufactures and commerce, not 
agriculture. The prevalence of trade is shown by the great quan- 
tities of coined money that existed. Roman coins have been found 
in vast numbers now for many centuries. Some have been lost 
or melted down, but many thousands still exist in public and 
private collections. They have frequently been found in hoards, 
in earthen jars where their owners hid or kept them, or in 
purses that their owners lost. A few years ago, during some 
excavations at Silchester, a Roman bath was disclosed. In the 
opening of one of the lead pipes a pile of some two hundred 
coins was found, and close to it in a corner of the bath a human 
skeleton. It seems probable that the man had just hidden or 
was just seeking the money when death overtook him. Other 
coins have been found scattered among the ruins of houses, in 
the streets or the outlying fields of ancient towns, and along the 
roads. They represent coinage of all the emperors from Augustus 



ROMAN BRITAIN 



29 



to the latest days of the province. Mints existed at London, 
Dover, and perhaps other places, where money was coined ; and 
great numbers of coins must have been brought over from the 
continent. The familiar figure of Britannia on modern English 
coins is taken from certain coins of the province issued under the 
emperor Hadrian. 

18. Language and Religion. — It is evident from what has 
been said that civilization was highly developed in Britain dur- 
ing the Roman period. The population became very much mixed, 
on account of immigration from all parts 
of the Empire. It is probable that Latin 
became almost the universal language. 
Thousands of inscriptions have been dis- 
covered in that language and none in the 
Celtic formerly in use. It is true that 
many of the rivers and mountains pre- 
served their Celtic or even pre-Celtic 
names. No doubt also in the rural dis- 
tricts and in the more remote parts of the 
country a large part of the original British 
population and even of the descendants 
of those early races which preceded the 
Britons still survived with their language 
and customs almost undisturbed through the whole Roman period. 

The same gods were worshiped here as at Rome, as well as 
some known only to this or other outlying parts of the Roman 
Empire. Burial inscriptions and votive offerings reproduce their 
names. Temples and altars were dedicated to Jupiter and to most 
of the other Roman deities, and to various minor deities of the 
streams, the fields, the roads, and the mountains. For instance, 
on a small altar discovered at Rochester is the inscription, " To 
the goddess Minerva, Julius Carantus dedicated this." On another, 
found at Tynemouth, the inscription is " Aelius Rums, prefect of 
the fourth cohort of the Lingones, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus." 




A Roman Altar dedicated 
to Jupiter by Aelius 
Rufus, found at Tyne- 
mouth 



30 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



An altar near Chester, where springs are numerous, is inscribed 
" From the Twentieth Legion, the Valiant-victorious, to the 
nymphs and fountains." 

Christianity probably made its way early into Britain as into 
other parts of the then known world, but there is no trust- 
worthy record of its earliest history. There were certainly indi- 
vidual Christians in Britain in the third 
century of the Christian era. The old 
legend of the martyrdom of St. Alban 
places that event at the beginning of the 
next century, and bishops of London and 
York attended a church council in Gaul 
in 314. Christianity became the official 
religion of the Roman Empire after the 




A Christian Emblem, rep- 
resenting the First Two 
Greek Letters of the 
Name Christ : on a Bar 
of Lead found in the 
River Thames 



year a.d. 324, but its extension and in- 



fluence in Britain could hardly have been 
very great, as scarcely more than a single 
Christian emblem or inscription has been 
found among the Roman remains, and the mention of the new 
faith in contemporary writers is slight and obscure. 

19. Decay of Roman Britain. — As time passed the prosperity 
and good order of the Roman Empire declined. It is altogether 
probable that in Britain, as in other provinces, wealth and popu- 
lation were decreasing, and it is certain that invasions from beyond 
the borders were more frequent. One of the causes of the loss of 
prosperity was the heavy taxation which was necessary to pay the 
expenses of the army, of the officeholders, and of the other needs 
of the imperial government. Land taxes, poll taxes, taxes on 
imports and exports and on sales had become so heavy and were 
so badly distributed that property decreased in value, many people 
found it impossible to make a living, and vast numbers, even in 
times of order and safety, were utterly miserable. 

During the fourth century of the Christian era the government 
of the Empire was everywhere experiencing increasing difficulty 



ROMAN BRITAIN 3 1 

in defending its frontiers against the barbarian races outside of the 
borders. Its armies were engaged in almost constant conflicts 
with various tribes which were trying to make their way into the 
Empire. In some cases the barbarians came to plunder and then 
go away ; in others they made their way within the frontiers and 
became permanent though unwelcome settlers. Many of these 
barbarians were taken individually or by bands into the military 
service of the Roman government, and became an efficient but 
dangerous element in the army. 

In Britain the principal enemies from outside the frontiers were 
the Franks and the Saxons, who ravaged the southeast coast from 
the sea ; the Scots from the north of Ireland, who made frequent 
descents upon the northwest coast ; and the Picts or Caledonians, 
who still invaded the province from time to time as they had 
done in the earlier years of the Roman occupation. The first of 
these were the most destructive, as they attacked the most popu- 
lous and wealthy part of the province. To protect the people 
against them, a line of nine forts was erected along the south- 
eastern coast, and a fleet was regularly kept in the Channel. 
These forts and the fleet were under the command of an official 
known as the " Count of the Saxon Shore in Britain." His office 
was no sinecure and he was constantly engaged in beating off 
invaders. Notwithstanding the coast defense^, the great wall 
on the north, and the military stations established in the north- 
west, the Picts, Scots, and Saxons made repeated attacks and 
frequently ravaged great sections of the country. In 368 we 
hear of marauders capturing slaves and cattle within a few miles 
of London. 

20. Withdrawal of the Roman Troops. — The weakness of the 
military defense of the province during this period was largely the 
result of the repeated efforts of the commanders of the troops in 
Britain to seize the control of the whole Empire. Detached from 
the rest of the Empire in their island province they had opportu- 
nities to gain the attachment of their troops and to strengthen 



32 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



themselves till they were practically independent. They were 
then tempted to revolt against the central government and to 
take troops to the continent to fight for imperial sway. 

Several successful emperors began their careers in this way. 
But such attempts were in most cases calamitous failures. In 383 
Clemens Maximus was proclaimed emperor in Britain, and soon 
afterwards gathered most of the troops in the island and took 
them with him to the continent to contend with the legitimate 
emperor. He was eventually killed, and few of his troops ever 
returned. Although reinforcements for the garrison in Britain 
were sent over a few years later, these had soon to be withdrawn 
again to protect Italy against the Goths, and the British legions 
remained permanently weakened. In 407 a general named Con- 
stantine was proclaimed emperor under the name Constantine III 
by the soldiers in Britain, and he and his troops passed over 
together to the continent, where after a period of success he 
also was defeated and killed. This left the province practically 
without troops. In 410 the emperor Honorius, finding himself 
unable to send troops, wrote from Italy urging the cities of 
Britain to provide for their own defense. The government of 
the province had always been in the hands of the military com- 
mander, so the withdrawal of the garrison left it without any repre- 
sentative of the central government of the Empire. Deprived of 
its military garrison, deserted by the higher imperial officials, and 
abandoned by the emperor, Britain ceased to be a province of 
the Roman Empire. 

2 1 . Relapse into Barbarism. — A period of some two hundred 
years follows of which we have only a few glimpses of confusion 
and increasing barbarism. When the province was abandoned 
by its rulers and defenders it might be expected that it would 
simply fall back into the tribal independence and savage simplic- 
ity of life of the Celtic times before the Roman conquest, three 
hundred years before. But this was impossible. Britain was now 
occupied by a mixed race of which the Celts were only one element. 



ROMAN BRITAIN 33 

Its people were used to the ways of civilization, lived to a con- 
siderable extent in cities, and carried on varied occupations. 

On the other hand, there was no organized government left, and 
no national feeling on which to base any, since the Romans had 
governed Britain for centuries in the interest of the Empire as a 
whole, without regard to the wishes of the inhabitants of this one 
province. Roman law had doubtless superseded the old tribal 
customs. It was hardly to be expected that the Britons could, 
under the circumstances, organize a new government for themselves. 
There was no military force and no capacity for self-protection or 
defense, as the whole Roman military system was based on the 
standing army, without any local militia or habit of bearing arms 
among the common people. If it had been impossible for the 
legions to protect the frontiers against barbarians, it is no wonder 
that the unarmed, untrained, and unorganized population of the 
province proved unable to defend their land. The country was 
already, in all probability, going backward in wealth and popu- 
lation, and even the cessation of Roman taxation could not restore 
or keep up prosperity in such times of confusion and calamity. 

There are almost no contemporary records written in Britain 
during this period, and almost no references to Britain in writers 
of other provinces. We know little more than that it was a time 
of much warfare and confusion, invasion and new settlement; 
that the old cities lost their inhabitants ; that civilization gradu- 
ally died out ; that Christianity disappeared ; that the Latin and 
Celtic languages alike ceased to be spoken in the greater part of 
the country. All these gave place to a new language, a new 
religion, and new customs brought in by invaders. 

Certain material structures, such as roads, bridges, and buildings, 
remained ; the draining and clearing of swamps and forests was a 
permanent benefit ; a few new animals, trees, and plants had been 
introduced ; methods of agriculture were preserved to later times ; 
and many boundaries then laid down were permanently kept. 
Except for these things Roman Britain had passed entirely away. 



34 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



22. Summary of the Roman Period. — The period of Roman 
supremacy in Britain was a single episode rather than part of the 
continuous progress of the development of the English nation, 
but it was an episode of much interest. After the beginning of 
the conquest, a.d. 43, the Romans rapidly introduced a highly 
developed civilization, which retained its dominance until the 



i'%-4 











Roman Mosaic Pavement recently uncovered at Aldborough 

withdrawal of the legions in 407. Those two dates mark the 
beginning and the end of civilization in Britain for many cen- 
turies. It is impossible to believe that no influence was exerted 
on later English history by the period of Roman control, but it 
was less than in any other European province of the Empire. 
The new barbarian settlers, mixed though they may have been 
with the old population, had to begin the work of creating a 
civilization and building a nation almost anew. 



ROMAN BRITAIN 35 

General Reading. — The best short account is in the little book, 
Scarth, Roman Britain. The book by Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and 
the Saxon, referred to at the close of the previous chapter, is particu- 
larly good for Roman Britain. The fullest and best narrative of the events 
of this period is in Ramsay, Foundations of England, Vol. I, chap. vii. 
Conybeare, Roman Britain, is another good small book. 

Contemporary Sources'. —Tacitus, Agricola, sects. 8-40; Annates, Book 
XIV. Tacitus was the son-in-law of Agricola, and probably learned from 
him by word of mouth what he records of the period of conquest and 
organization of the province. Several translations of the works of Tacitus 
have been published. The most convenient is the " Oxford Translation," 
in Bonn's Library. Extracts from Tacitus are given in Lee, Source-Book, 
No. 19, and Colby, Sources, No. 3, and, along with other documents, in 
Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 14-24. Almost all we know about the period of 
decay is in Gildas, published in Six Old English Chronicles (a volume in 
Bohn's Library). 

Poetry and Fiction. — Tennyson, Boadicea ; Cowper, Boadicea; 
CHURCH, A. J., The Count of the Saxon Shore ; Cutts, E.L., The Villa of 
Claudius : Arnold, Phra the Phoenician; Kipling, "A Centurion of the 
Thirtieth," " On the Great Wall," and " The Winged Hats," in Puck of 
PooFs Hill. 

Special Topics. — ( 1) The Roman Wall, in Mommsen, Roman Provinces, 
Vol. I, chap, v, and Wright, The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, pp. 156- 
158 ; (2) Roads, in Wright, pp. 221-225 ; (3) Villas, in Traill, Social Eng- 
land, Vol. I,. pp. 76-82 and 93-95; (4) Towns, ibid., pp. 15-18; (5) The 
Army, ibid., pp. 56-64 ; and (6) Roman Influence in Britain, ibid., pp. 18-25. 










CHAPTER IV 
EARLY SAXON ENGLAND. 400-830 

23. Settlements of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. — Of the 
various barbarous enemies that ravaged the province of Britain 
during the fourth and fifth centuries, the Picts and Scots made no 
permanent settlements and may therefore be left without further 
notice. On the other hand, the invaders that came by sea from 
the continent of Europe gradually became not only marauders 
but conquerors and settlers. The Teutonic tribes that occupied 
the northwestern coast of Europe had long been in the habit 
of making forays into the cultivated provinces of the Roman 
Empire. Time and time again, following the coasts of what 
are now Holland and Belgium till they came in sight of the 
white cliffs of Britain, they passed across the strait to the 
island, then made their way either northward along the east 
coast or westward along the south coast, rowing into some river 
mouth or landing on some un watched beach and ravaging the 
adjoining country. During the period of decay of Roman Britain 
their invasions became more frequent and their numbers greater. 
These marauders were principally Angles, Saxons, Frisians, and 
Jutes, coming from the seacoast of the Netherlands, northwestern 
Germany, and southern Denmark. 

At some time during this period they began to settle in the 
land they had formerly merely ravaged. According to an old 
tradition, when the Britons were especially hard pressed by the 
Picts and the Scots, they invited the sea rovers in to defend 
them, giving them land for settlement in return. This earliest 
permanent settlement is reported to have been in 449, under the 

36 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 37 

leadership of two chieftains, Hengist and Horsa. The facts, names, 
and dates given in the early chronicles are, however, fragmen- 
tary, confused, and uncertain. These chronicles were written in 
much later times, and give us at best only the dim outlines of the 
process of settlement of these newcomers into Britain. 

During the fifth and sixth centuries bands of invaders continued 
to come over from the same lands for the purpose of obtaining 
settlements for themselves on the coast of Britain or farther 
inland. Each body seems to have come under the leadership 
of its own chieftain or ealdorman, and to have made what terms 
it could, peaceful or hostile, with the Britons. Some districts 
were no doubt but thinly populated, and the invaders simply 
occupied the country as fellow settlers with the Britons who were 
already there. In other parts there were bitter struggles and 
long sieges, and only after successive battles were the invaders 
able to hold the land and either subject the Britons to their 
control or drive them out of the district altogether. 

The newcomers were seldom satisfied with a mere foothold. 
On some parts of the coast leaders with numerous followers 
immediately after they had landed entered upon a course of war- 
fare and conquest of the country lying inland, while in other 
parts the detached bands of early settlers were only later drawn 
together by some warlike leader who then proceeded to extend 
his dominion by conquests from the Britons far into the interior 
of the country. In this way, before the year 600, fully one half 
of the island had been more or less completely occupied and con- 
quered by the Teutonic tribes from the continent, and a number 
of petty kingdoms had been formed, each under its own ruler. 

24. The Early Kingdoms. — In the northeast the country 
from the Firth of Forth to the Humber River had been formed 
into two kingdoms, Bernicia and Deira. These were frequently 
combined into one, which was then spoken of as the kingdom of 
the Northumbrians. Its people were Angles. Another group of 
Angle tribes had occupied the district between the Humber and 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the Wash, had conquered the natives far inland to the westward, 
and formed the large kingdom known as Mercia. Still further 
down the eastern coast, in the old district of the Iceni, were the 
North Folk and the South Folk, who were together known as the 
East Angles. 

The country to the south of this was occupied by Saxons, except 
two small districts which were settled by Jutes. Those who had 
occupied the land just north of the Thames River were the East 
Saxons. A branch of these, who had gone westward and captured 
London and the land around it, were known as the Middle 
Saxons. The land in the extreme southeast had been occupied 
by Jutes who became known as Kentishmen. 1 Their kingdom 
extended to the Thames on the north and to the great forest on 
the west. The narrow strip of land between this forest and the 
Channel on the south was the kingdom of the South Saxons. The 
old city of Anderida had been captured by them, a later chronicle 
says, as early as 491, and every Briton in it killed. 

The Isle of Wight and the mainland just north of it were early 
settled by a body of Jutes. The most important settlers and con- 
querors here, however, were the West Saxons, who came some- 
what later. They landed in Southampton Water about 500 a.d., 
under their leader or ealdorman Cerdic. The land here lay open 
to the northward and westward, with Roman roads extending in 
all directions into the heart of the country. But the native popu- 
lation was probably more numerous and wealthy here than in any 
other part of Britain, and the Saxons had to fight their way step 
by step. In twenty years they had brought under control the 
district which now makes up the county of Hampshire. Under 
successive rulers in the re-mainder of the century they made 
further advances, capturing a number of old cities and conquer- 
ing the country across the Thames and some distance up the 

1 The name Kent is from the Celtic word " Caint," an open place. 
The Jutish inhabitants called themselves " Caintwara," or dwellers in the 
Caint. Canterbury, or Caintwarabyrig, means the town of the Caintwara. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 



39 



valley of the Severn. This difficult military conquest resulted in 
making the West Saxons the strongest and most compact race of 
the Anglo-Saxon invaders. The seven kingdoms formed by the 
Northumbrians, Mercians, East Anglians, East Saxons, Kentish- 
men, South Saxons, and West Saxons are often spoken of as the 
Heptarchy, though there was no fixed and permanent grouping 
into this number. Sometimes conquest reduced two or more 
under one ruler ; at other times 
local rebellions or other causes of 
separation made the number of 
independent kingdoms greater. 

25. The New Race. — It is im- 
possible to tell how far the people 
of these petty kingdoms were pure 
Teutonic settlers from Germany, 
and how far they were a mixed race 
including descendants of the old 
inhabitants of Britain. It is in- 
credible that the earlier population 
should have been actually exter- 
minated, yet what proportion sur- 
vived we have no means of knowing. 
It is especially unfortunate that 
contemporary records are almost absolutely wanting for the period 
in which the very foundations of the English race were being laid. 

Nevertheless there can be no doubt that a very large propor- 
tion of the population sprang from the newcomers. Their lan- 
guage, religion, government, and, in the main, their customs, 
rapidly superseded those of Celtic and Roman Britain. 

26. The New Language. — The new settlers spoke dialects 
of the Low German branch of the Teutonic group of languages, 
nearly allied to the languages of the Scandinavian peninsula, of 
the Netherlands, and of northern Germany. Alongside of this 
new language, Latin and, in all except the western part of the 




Early Anglo-Saxon Dress 
Fastenings 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

country, Celtic disappeared. Only a few words of Latin and Celtic 
origin were retained and became a permanent part of the language 
of the country. 

Little if any of the language of the invaders existed in written 
form, though runes, or rude letters copied from Latin or Greek 
capitals, were known to them before they had come into Britain, 
and were used to a slight extent for inscriptions on stones, on 
horn implements, and other objects. Soon after their settlement 
in Britain some scholars who were familiar with written Latin began 
in imitation of that language to write down their own words as 
they sounded, thus giving rise to a written as well as a spoken 
language. This was first done among the Angles of Northumbria. 
Native written language was therefore known as English, 1 even in 
the Saxon kingdoms, to which the custom of writing soon spread. 
From this use of the word English as applied to the language, 
added to the fact that the Angles were the most numerous of the 
invaders and had overspread the larger part of the island, grew 
the custom of applying the term English to the whole new race. 
The name Angle-land or England was eventually given to the 
whole country which the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes occupied. In 
modern times Anglo-Saxon is the expression usually applied both 
to the people of the period and to their language. 

Poems and songs already existed which only needed to be 
written down to become a body of literature, and this was done 
soon after the new race entered Britain. War songs, poems cele- 
brating the successes of their leaders, sagas or rhythmical tales 
of adventure, poems personifying the changes in nature, with 
descriptions of summer and winter, sea, storm, clouds, and winds, 
made up the poetic possessions of the Angles and Saxons at the 
time of their emigration from the old lands to the new. A famous 
piece of literature which has survived from this time is Beoivulf, 

1 Engle and Angle were equivalent forms, sometimes one, sometimes 
the other being used ; but it has become usual to speak of the people as 
Angles, the language as English. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 41 

a long narrative poem describing the adventures of a hero of that 
name. It tells how he slew a fierce dragon named Grendel, and 
afterwards a still more terrible monster, the mother of Grendel ; 
how he lived as a virtuous king and then in his old age was 
killed in a contest with another dragon. The tale with its wild 
scenery and vigorous figures of speech shows a spirit of strenuous 
effort, love of battle, barbaric loyalty to friends and cruelty to 
foes, and fearlessness of death. It holds that every man has his 
weird, a fate which must be endured and against which all resist- 
ance is in vain. Yet for all the fierce, wild life the poem represents, 
Beowulf's followers declare of him after his death that he was 

Of all men the mildest, and to men the kindest, 
To his people gentlest, and of praise the keenest. 

Another poem, commonly called the Ruined Burgh, appears to 
describe the remains of an old Roman city as it appeared to a 
West Saxon poet. 

Windowless is this wall of stone ; weirds have shattered it. 
Broken are the burgh-steads, crumbled down the giants' work ; 
Fallen down are the roof-beams, ruined are the towers. 

27. The Religion of the Anglo-Saxons. — The religion of the 
new settlers was similar to that of the other Teutonic races. 
Woden was the great war god, whose name forms part of many 
place names in England x and survives in our word Wednesday. 
He was the reputed ancestor of the royal line of almost every one 
of the petty kingdoms. Thor was the god of rain and storms and 
thunder, whose name is preserved in our Thursday. Tuesday, 
Friday, and perhaps Saturday are also named from early English 
deities. Other powers of good and evil, greater and lesser, were 
worshiped or dreaded. The early English were as superstitious 
as other barbarians, and their minds were full of stories of mythical 
heroes, of giants, witches, monsters, and strange beings scarcely 
1 Such as Wodensbury, Woden's Dyke, and Wanborough. 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

belonging to this world. They believed, as the more ignorant of 
their descendants have always since believed, in signs, in lucky 
and unlucky places and times, in elves, goblins, pixies, and fairies. 
But of this mythology there are left only a few vague indications 
in the names of places, in old legends, and in the fairy tales that 
have survived but are now told only to children. 

There were priests devoted to the worship of the gods, and 
inclosures, altars, and images dedicated to the various deities. 
The priests do not seem to have exercised the influence over the 
English which the Druids had over the early Britons. Nor did 
the religion of the early English have so strong a hold upon them 
that it proved difficult afterwards to induce them to abandon it. 

28. Government. — There is still less known of the government 
than of the language and religion of the new race, and nothing 
like a clear conception of it can be obtained till a time long after 

the settlement. The chieftains who led the first 
bodies of settlers had probably held no very 
elevated position in their home land. In the 
process of migration and as a result of the con- 
quests they made in Britain they took the title 
Join of Cuthred, of k - and obtained i ncre ased authority. Never- 
King of Kent ° . .,, . , 

theless the great men of the nation still exercised 

considerable power, and the kings were scarcely more than leaders 
of their nation in war. Family or clan organization was important, 
and the heads of families had much influence. There was no such 
thing as equality among the people, eorls or nobles being clearly 
distinguished from ceorls or common men. Slavery was also com- 
mon. Law was merely custom, and was explained and applied in 
special cases by the people themselves in gatherings held at regu- 
lar intervals. 

29. Barbarism. — One of the most marked changes from 
Roman Britain was the almost entire cessation of city life. The 
old towns had sunk into ruins in the times of confusion, or had 
been destroyed in the storms of the conquest. The newcomers 




EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 43 

were used only to agriculture, cattle raising, fishing, and hunting. 
They were not sufficiently advanced in knowledge or wealth 
for city life. They saw no attraction in the enjoyments of 
towns ; their pleasures were found in hunting and warfare. 
Walled cities were even a matter of dislike to them. They con- 
nected them with confinement and with mysterious powers. 
Love of liberty, lack of industrial and trading knowledge, and 
fear of magic alike led the Angles and Saxons to prefer the open 
life of the woods and fields. Therefore, although some of the 
cities such as London, York, and Canterbury may have retained 
some population and even, possibly, an organized government, 
yet they shrank into small, unprosperous and insignificant towns, 
while others disappeared altogether. The great body of the pop- 
ulation lived in small villages or in country houses surrounded by 
banks or hedges. 

Nor were the Anglo-Saxons traders. Their crude agriculture 
and still cruder handicrafts gave them but little with which to 
trade, nor were they sufficiently civilized to have needs not satis- 
fied by their own efforts of by plundering. The roads therefore 
had much the same fate as the cities. Most of them were neg- 
lected and disregarded. A few, however, remained in use and 
were even kept in repair. Portions of them have remained, as has 
been said, even to this day, and detached sections of many more 
are still traceable. Four of the old roads retained such impor- 
tance as to be given distinctive names by the Anglo-Saxons and 
to be frequently mentioned in their records as boundaries or 
means of communication. The best known of these is Watling 
Street, the Roman road from the southern ports to London, 
thence northwestward to Chester, across the island again to 
York, and finally northward to the great wall. Its name is a good 
indication of the mixture of races, combining the Roman word 
strata, meaning a paved road, with the name of a race of heroes 
of Anglo-Saxon mythology, the Waetlings. Ermine Street, the 
great northern road to Lincoln and thence to York, was likewise 



44 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



named for a Saxon deity, Eormen. The Icknield-way was a 
Roman road extending from the southwestern part of the country 
across to Norwich and the eastern coast, and the Fosse-way was 
another extending from Exeter and Bath to Lincoln. The Roman 
bridges were likewise preserved in some cases ; in others neglected 
till they disappeared. 

For such slight trade as existed, the remaining Roman money 
must have nearly sufficed. Still the early Saxons had some silver 
coins of small value, either brought with them or minted soon 
after the settlement, in imitation of the Roman coinage. 

30. The Mission of Augustine. — In many ways England had 
gone back to much the same state of barbarism as that in which 
it had been before the Roman conquest, and the work of civili- 
zation had to be begun almost anew. One of the first steps of 
this advancement, was the reintroduction of Christianity. 

Rome was at this time the source of much missionary effort. 
An old story tells how Gregory, a Roman deacon, in going to the 
market place and seeing some boys with white skin, fair faces, 
and fine hair exposed by a merchant for sale as slaves, was struck 
with their beauty and asked their race. When he was told they 
were Angles and came from a heathen land, he declared that 
they looked rather like angels, and ought to be rescued from 
paganism to become joint heirs with the angels of heaven. When 
he was chosen pope, some years afterwards, he organized a body 
of monks as missionaries, placed them under the direction of 
a Roman priest named Augustine, 1 and sent them to England. 
After passing through France and obtaining some new com- 
panions and interpreters they crossed the Channel and landed on 
the shore of Kent in the spring of 597. 

The way was prepared for them. The people of Kent already 
had more intercourse with the continent than those of the more 

1 This Augustine must not be confused with the great African bishop 
of the same name, who lived two centuries before. The story referred to is 
in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book II, chap. i. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 



45 



distant parts of England, and the wife of Ethelbert, 1 king of Kent, 
was a daughter of the Frankish king who reigned in Paris. She 
was a Christian, had been accompanied to England by a Christian 
bishop, and was already using for private worship an old dismantled 
Roman church on the outskirts of Canterbury. 

Therefore, when Augustine and his companions sent word to 
the king of their arrival and of the messages they had brought, 
the matter can hardly have been new to Ethelbert. With true 



ItfetlL 




Church of St. Martin at Canterbury 



barbarian dislike of confinement, however, and doubtless with 
some fear of magic, he arranged to meet the missionaries in the 
open air. Augustine and his companions came to the conference 
bearing a silver cross and a picture of Christ painted on a board, 
and singing the litany. Augustine then preached to the king 
and his attendants. He was listened to patiently, and with his 
companions allowed to come to Canterbury and given permission 

1 The Anglo-Saxon form of this name is ^ithelberht. The ancient forms 
of proper names will be used in this book only when the name has disap- 
peared altogether from use and has no modern equivalent. 



46 ' A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

to teach and preach. Some time afterwards Ethelbert himself, 
with many others, accepted Christianity and was baptized. 

Augustine soon went to the continent and was ordained by con- 
sent of the pope " archbishop of the English " ; then returned 
and proceeded to spread and organize the Christian church in 
that country. At first Queen Bertha's chapel of St. Martin at 
Canterbury was used, then another old Roman church was 
repaired and became the predecessor of Canterbury Cathedral. 
Other buildings and lands were granted to them, and the work 
of conversion and the establishment of new centers was carried 
as far as the influence of Ethelbert extended, which was at that 
time far beyond the limits of Kent. 

31. Christianity in Northumbria. — With the death of Ethel- 
bert difficulties arose, and the progress of Christianity became 
very slow. In most of the kingdoms of the south and center 
of the country there was much resistance. In Northumbria, 
however, circumstances were more favorable. About thirty years 
after the arrival of Augustine in Kent, Edwin of Deira obtained 
the crown of Northumbria and married a Kentish princess. She 
brought to Northumbria with her Paulinus, a Kentish priest, 
ordained bishop for the purpose of introducing Christianity into 
the north. This bishop urged Edwin and his court to become 
Christians, but for a long time without success. Finally, as one 
of the most picturesque of the old stories recounts, the king and 
his nobles yielded to the preaching of Paulinus, and the old gods 
were deserted. 1 Soon the king and the • leading men of the 
Northumbrians were baptized, and a church was built, first of 
wood and later of stone, which afterwards became York Minster. 
Christianity was thus established in the north. 

32. The Scottish Missions. — Even when a defeat of the 
Northumbrians by the heathen king of Mercia brought a wave 
of paganism back over the country and drove Paulinus, with the 
widow and children of Edwin, back to Kent, the process of 

1 See the story in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book II, chap. xiii. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 



47 



conversion was only stopped for a moment. Scottish monks from 
the northward now came to Northumbria and preached Christian- 
ity among the people. Their leader was Aidan, a monk and bishop, 
educated and ordained at the monastery of Iona, who presented 
himself to«King Oswald, a successor of Edwin, and formed a 
friendship with him that remained unbroken through both of 
their lives. Aidan and his 



•f pieces Uimtas 7 
lUciprtreu ccuxjln 




monks were granted Lin- 
disfarne, or Holy Island, 
lying off the Northum- 
brian coast, as a dwell- 
ing place, and made it 
a new center for the 
spread of religion and 
the establishment of 
churches. Enthusiastic 
missionaries sent out 
thence passed through all 
the northern and central 
parts of England, winning 
converts among the com- 
mon people, the nobles, 
and the rulers, and recon- 
verting the East Saxons. 
In the meanwhile other 
missionaries came from 
the continent to the East 
Angles and West Saxons ; 
and by 650, scarcely fifty 
years after the arrival of Augustine and twenty after Aidan, 
all England except Sussex had become Christian. The South 
Saxons, cut off from the rest of the English by forest and swamps, 
were converted later in the century. Of course much of this con- 
version must have been merely nominal. Remote districts must 



Initial Letter and Opening Words of a Manu- 
script Copy of St. Luke's Gospel in the 
Lindisfarne Gospel Book, written about 
700 A.D- 



48 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

have long remained untouched by it, and we have records which 
show that charms, signs, belief in various supernatural beings, and 
strange local customs' and legends still survived and made up 
much of the everyday religion of the people. The old heathenism 
as a matter of popular custom died slowly. • 

33. The Synod of Whitby. — As Christianity became more 
widespread, dissensions arose, among those who were preaching 
the new religion, that prevented their cooperation and the forma- 
tion of a united religious body. There were in reality two forms 
of Christianity in the British Islands : one existing among the 
Celtic races and taught by the missionaries who came from them, 
the other that which had been introduced by missionaries who 
came directly from the continent. The Britons in the western 
part of the island had retained their Christianity from Roman 
times. It had been carried thence to Ireland by St. Patrick just 
about the time of the departure of the Romans from Britain. 
Almost at the same time the Scots, who occupied the north of 
Ireland, began to make conquests and settlements on the western 
coast of the land of the Picts. 1 Here the monastery of Iona was 
founded by Columba and became a new center of missionary 
activity. This Celtic branch of the Christian church in Wales, 
Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England followed somewhat 
different customs from those of the church as it had grown up 
in the continental countries. It differed in the calculation of 
the date of Easter, in the forms used in baptism, and in the 
tonsure or ceremonial cutting of the hair of churchmen. The 
Celtic clergy were enthusiastic and devoted to the work of preach- 
ing and teaching among the common people, but they had adopted 

1 Scot was simply the Roman name for Gael, that branch of the Celts 
of Britain which lived in Ireland. In the sixth century the Scots began 
to make settlements on the western islands and mainland of Caledonia, 
the country of the Picts. These conquests and settlements extended over 
a larger and larger region until the Scots became the most important part 
of the population and the whole country came to be called Scotland. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 49 

a very simple, almost disorderly form of church government. The 
abbots of the great monasteries like lona and Lindisfarne were the 
most influential church officials. The priests wandered from place 
to place baptizing, saying mass, performing the ceremony of mar- 
riage and other rites of the church ; and even the bishops, in Ireland 
and Scotland at least, were only priests fulfilling somewhat highei 
functions, but having no settled territory under their charge. On 
the other hand, the missionaries who had been sent from the con- 
tinent, and the English churchmen who had visited France and 
Italy and then returned to England, held the continental view of 
the date of Easter and of similar questions. They were also 
strongly impressed with the power and authority of the church as 
it was being more carefully organized in the continental countries. 
When by appointment to bishoprics in the center or north of 
England they came into contact with the Celtic clergy, they 
quarreled with them on these disputed points and strove to force 
them to conform to the continental customs. These disputes 
finally led to the calling by the Northumbrian king, in 664, of 
a council of churchmen and others at Whitby, where, after a 
long discussion, the king gave his voice in favor of the southern 
customs. The Celtic customs from this time forward were given 
up in England, and gradually passed away even in Scotland, 
Wales, and Ireland. 

34. Organization of the Christian Church in England. — The 
Christian church in England thus took shape as one united body, 
with the same customs, teachings, and organization as were in 
existence in all other countries of western Europe which looked 
to Rome as a religious center. Bishoprics were established, 
churches built, and the people converted and taught. Next came 
the more complete internal organization of the church. This was 
largely borrowed from the continental countries, where the old 
organization and civil administration of the Roman Empire had 
been adopted by the Christian clergy and adapted to the needs 
of the church. The work of organization in England was 



5° 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



principally carried out between 670 and 690 by Theodore of 
Tarsus, archbishop of Canterbury. 

Theodore was a Greek monk and had been trained in Greek 
philosophy and theology. He spent some time at Rome and 
came under the influence of the Roman ideas of church organi- 
zation. When he was sent to England there were seven bishops, 
whose districts corresponded pretty nearly to the old kingdoms. 
By the influence of Theodore several of these districts were soon 
, divided, usually on the 

lines of the original 
tribal settlements, so 
that there came to 
be fifteen dioceses or 
bishops' sees, all rec- 
ognizing the bishop 
of Canterbury, who 
was known as the 
"archbishop." Later 
a second archbishopric 
was founded. The 
northern bishoprics 
were placed under the 
supervision of the 
bishop of the North- 
umbrians, with his principal seat at York, who therefore became 
known as the " archbishop of York." Each bishop was required 
to attend to the affairs of his own diocese only, not intruding into 
any other, and priests were placed strictly under the jurisdic- 
tion of their own bishop. Throughout the country priests were 
gradually established, and churches built in each village. In 
673 at Hertford was held a meeting or synod of all the bishops, 
at which rules were adopted for churchmen in all the dioceses 
alike ; and such church councils were held frequently afterward. 
Thus England was organized into a single body for religious 




Church at Bradford-on-Avon : the only Com- 
plete Church surviving from Saxon Times 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 5 I 

purposes, while it was still divided politically into a number 
of independent kingdoms. 1 

35. Monasteries. — There were other churchmen in England 
besides the bishops and the parish priests. These were the 
numerous groups of monks who lived in monasteries in various 
parts of England. Monks and nuns are men and women who take 
vows to live according to some religious rule governing all the 
actions of life. 2 The rule followed in most of England after 
Christianity had become thoroughly established was the rule of 
St. Benedict. Benedictine monasteries usually arose in this way. 
A body of men or of women gathered around an abbot or an 
abbess and bound themselves by the three vows of chastity, pov- 
erty, and obedience. That is to say, they promised not to marry, 
not to possess any private property, and to obey their abbot in all 
things. A pious king or noble granted them land, which was 
added to from time to time by the gifts of others. Supported 
partly by the rents from this land and partly by their own labor, 
they lived according to the requirements of their rule, more or 
less completely withdrawn from the usual occupations and inter- 
ests of the world. Thus monasteries were established in many 
out-of-the-way places, such as Peterborough and Croyland in the 
Fen district between East Anglia and Mercia, Malmesbury and 
Sherborne farther west, and Lindisfarne, Whitby, Wearmouth, and 
Jarrow in the far north. 

36. Revival of Civilization. — With the organization of the 
Christian church and the foundation of monasteries came a dis- 
tinct advance in all parts of English civilization. Men trained as 
clergymen, especially those who had traveled to the continent, 

1 See map of England divided into dioceses opposite p. 56. 

2 They are therefore spoken of as the " regular " clergy, from the Latin 
word regula, a rule. The clergy who were not monks or nuns were called 
the "secular" clergy, because their work lay in the ordinary world, from 
the Latin word sceculum. These included the bishops, parish priests, and 
others connected with the organized church outside of the monasteries. 



52 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



learned of the old Roman civilization which had been destroyed 
in England during the times of barbaric violence, and used their 
knowledge in the introduction of higher ways of living. In the 
monasteries the monks and their dependents raised better varieties 
of grain, fruits and vegetables, kept up fish ponds, and even pro- 
duced some kinds of crude manufactures. The more ambitious 
bishops and abbots succeeded in erecting stone churches and 
monastery buildings, and in obtaining for use in them glass win- 
dows, vessels of brass, gold and silver, ornamental clothing for 
religious services, and finally even books, religious and classical. 
At first these articles were imported from the continental coun- 
tries. This led to some trading; afterwards men were brought 
over who could make them ; and they were soon frequently 
manufactured in England itself. Thus under the influence of 
established church government regular industry and peaceful de- 
velopment of the country went on in a higher degree, notwith- 
standing the continuance of much violence, disorder, and warfare. 

37. Education and Literature. — Literature also awoke to a new 
life. Archbishop Theodore had been accompanied in his travels 
through England, in his work of regulating the church, by a monk 
named Hadrian, born in Africa but brought up in the south of 
Italy, where Greek was still spoken. Both therefore spoke Greek 
and encouraged its study. A school was started at Canterbury 
in connection with the church there, and somewhat later a similar 
one at York, while in most of the monasteries pupils were regu- 
larly taught to read and write English. The elements of Latin 
instruction, as well as the services of the church, were taught in a 
number of cathedral and monastic schools. 

There came to be a considerable amount of writing of a more 
varied kind, partly under the influence of the old Anglo-Saxon 
literary spirit, partly of the new classical learning. Lives of saints, 
allegories, narratives, and descriptions of natural scenes were writ- 
ten in prose and poetry, in Latin and in English. Of some church- 
men of the time, noted for their knowledge and their ability as 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 



53 



writers, the names and writings have come down to our own times, 
but there were also lesser poets whose names and songs have alike 
now disappeared but whose productions then gave abundant mate- 
rial to the gleemen who wandered through the country, singing 
their ballads in halls and on village greens. 

The most famous early Saxon writer was Baeda, " The Venerable 
Bede," as he is called. He was a monk who lived his whole life 
in the monastery of Jarrow. As a boy he was taught in the mon- 
astery school and afterwards studied the books which had been 
gathered there, and became familiar with most of the knowledge 
then available. He became school teacher to the monks and 
boys in the monastery, but found time during a long lifetime to 
write some fifty-five works of his own. He wrote text-books and 
larger works in* Latin, translated one or two Latin works into 
English, and composed some English poetry. He was the first 
historian of the English people, and his Ecclesiastical History of 
the English Nation is still the source to which we go for most of 
our knowledge of the very early Anglo-Saxon period. He died 
735 a.d. Shortly before the time of Bede a poet had become 
famous in the Northumbrian monastery of Whitby. This was 
Cacfdmon, a servant of the abbey, unlearned but gifted with poetic 
genius and impressed with the picturesqueness of the Bible stories. 
These he paraphrased, as they were told to him, in English verse ; 
others imitated him in the same poetic forms and subjects, and 
thus a series of poems reproducing a large part of the Bible was 
constructed and became well known. 

38. Internal Strife of the Kingdoms. — England was far better 
organized in an ecclesiastical than in a political way. Churchmen 
from one part of the country were frequently appointed to office 
in another, and councils attended by bishops from all England 
were held, while the kingdoms from which they came were still 
in constant warfare with one another. These were the kingdoms 
which had been formed in the early years of the conquest and 
settlements. Upon the conquests of the natives had followed 



54 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

wars among the invaders themselves. Civil wars also occurred 
in each kingdom between rival claimants for the crown. After 
the beginning of the seventh century these wars were more system- 
atic, led to some permanent results, and brought some order out 
of the chaos. The Northumbrians in the north, the Mercians 
in the center, and the West Saxons in the south of the country, 
the three kingdoms which had room for expansion, became much 
more powerful than any of the other kingdoms. East Anglia, 
Essex, 1 Sussex, and Kent were ruled by under-kings or chieftains 
subordinate to the ruler of one or other of the three great king- 
doms, or were simply added to their dominions. There were 
instances of revolts of these dependent kings, but most of the 
contests from this time forward were between the Northumbrians, 
the Mercians, and the West Saxons. 

39. Northumbria. — During the first half of the seventh century 
Northumbria was decidedly the most powerful state in England. 
Its kings gained repeated victories over the countries farther south 
and even at times held rule over almost all of England, as well 
as over what are now the Lowlands of Scotland. The city of 
Edinburgh or " Edwin's burgh " marks the northern limits of the 
power of Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, who 
reigned from 617 to 633, while later Northumbrian kings reduced 
the Picts, the northwestern Britons, and the Scots to dependence. 
Northumbria was also the leading state of England in literature, 
learning, and trade. A series of defeats near the end of the 
seventh century, however, made its permanent supremacy in the 
central and southern parts of England hopeless. 

40. Mercia. — Mercia then became more prominent. The 
kings of this country had a series of contests with the native 
Britons of Wales which resulted in forcing the latter to become 
tributary. Other wars occurred with the West Saxons to the 
southward. During the eighth century, especially under ./Ethelbald 

1 The territorial terms Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, and Wessex gradually 
took the place of the tribal names East Saxons, etc. 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 



55 




The Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms and the Three Native Principalities, ca. 800 a.d. 



56 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and Offa, whose reigns together covered the period from 716 to 
796, Mercia was in her turn the most powerful state in England 
and held all the districts to the eastward and southwestward, 
including London and Kent. The Mercian kings issued a spe- 
cially good coinage and seem to have paid much attention to 
the growth of trade. A separate archbishopric was for a while 
created at Lichfield, and the Mercian king had some intercourse 
with Charles the Great and other kings on the continent, and 
with the pope. Several of the Mercian kings abdicated the throne, 
as had those of Northumbria, and went on pilgrimages to Rome, 
or retired to English monasteries. Notwithstanding their good 
fortune in war, the Mercians were never successful in completely 
conquering either the Northumbrians or the West Saxons, and 
there were frequent revolts of the Kentishmen and East Anglians. 
In 796, Offa, the last of the great Mercian kings, died, and the 
kingdom soon lost its greatness and eventually its independence. 
41. West Saxon Overlordship. — The West Saxons had by con- 
quests gradually built up an extensive kingdom to the north, 
east, and west of their original capital at Winchester. In wars 
waged sometimes with the natives on the north and west and 
sometimes with the Angles of Mercia, the South and East Saxons, 
and the Kentishmen, they kept up their fighting habits and suc- 
cessfully resisted conquest by the Northumbrians and Mercians. 
Descendants of Cerdic, the first king, always ruled in Wessex, 
but there were many contests within the family for the crown. 
In one of these disputes Egber t, 1 a prince of the royal family, 
was exiled, and, according to the custom of the time, took refuge 
at the court of Charles the Great, king of the Franks. After 
remaining .there for thirteen years and doubtless seeing much 
of Charles's warlike and statesmanlike policy, he was recalled to 
be king of the West Saxons in 802. Within the next few years 
he had completed the conquest of the natives of the west, adding 
what are now Devonshire and Cornwall to his dominions. He 
1 The Anglo-Saxon form of this name is Ecgberht. 



4 Longitude West/ 7 2 from Greenwich 6 

ENGLAND 
divided into Bishoprics. 

50 100 



Scale of Miles. 




<^0 

THE M.-N. CO.. BUFFA LO, N Y.^Ij2 



EARLY SAXON ENGLAND 57 

then entered into a contest with Mercia and the states dependent 
upon it, defeating them and making them all acknowledge his 
supremacy. Finally, in ^o t he took an army to the borders of 
Northumbria, where the king of that country came to meet him 
and agreed to accept Egbert's overlordship. In the same year he 
forced submission upon the chieftains of Wales. Thus for the first 
time since the fall of the Roman Empire all Britain acknowledged, 
in name at least and for the time, the supremacy of one ruler. 

42. Summary of the Early Saxon Period. — The year 449, the 
traditional date of the arrival of the first Teutonic settlers'fmythi- 
cal as in all probability that date is, represents the most important 
event in the history of the English nation, the entrance of its 
founders into Britain. The new race, although barbarous, had 
in it elements which the old Roman civilization had lacked : it 
was vigorous, independent, and self-reliant ; families of this race 
were larger, and therefore population would increase ; a larger 
proportion of the people had influence on the government and 
the law, and these were therefore more suited to popular needs. 
Slight as their economic, political, and social development was, 
they proved to be a race capable of great progress in the sur- 
roundings which their new island home furnished to them. The 
arrival of Augustine in 597 represents the first great step of this 
progress, — the conversion of the English to Christianity, their 
organization as one united church body, and their connection by I 
this means with the continent, where the remains of ancient civili- 
zation were better preserved and society was more advanced. 
The attainment of a general overlordship of England by Egbert 
in 830 was not the creation of a real nation but it was a prepara- 
tion for it. Several of the separate kingdoms still went on, fre- 
quently with kings who were practically independent, and there 
was probably little or no national feeling. Nevertheless the kings 
of the West Saxon royal family never afterwards gave up their 
claim to be the rulers of all England, and thus a center existed 
around which national union was afterward built up. 




58 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

General Reading. — Green has three works covering this period : his 
Short History of the English People, chap, i, sects. 1-4 ; History of the 
English People, chaps, i and ii, and The Making of England. The last of 
these is the most complete, and occupies a whole volume. The first con- 
tains almost as much as the second and will be referred to as preferable and 
recommended for this and all the succeeding chapters except the last two. 
A much more accurate though not so vivid account is Ramsay, Foundations 
of England, Vol. I, chaps, ix-xiii. Grant Allen, Anglo-Saxon Britain, is 
an excellent short book on the period. The Anglo-Saxon church is well 
described in Wakeman, History of the Church of England. 

Contemporary Sources. — Tacitus, Germania, includes a description 
of the customs of the Germans from whom the Anglo-Saxons sprang, and 
gives some idea of the condition of the new race before they entered Britain. 
Extracts are given in Colby, No. 4, and Kendall, No. 2. The most 
valuable and interesting contemporary record of the whole Saxon period is 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ; but for the conversion to Christianity and a 
number of other parts of the early history, Bede, Ecclesiastical History, is 
most valuable. Some of the most interesting sections in the latter are 
Book I, chaps, vii, xii, xxv, xxvi; Book II, chaps, i, ii, ix, xii, xiii, xvi; 
Book III, chaps, v, vi, ix-xii, xvii, xxv ; Book IV, chaps, iii, xviii, xix, xxiv, 
xxviii-xxxii. Both the Chronicle and Bede are translated and published in 
one volume in the Bohn series under the name of Bede's Ecclesiastical His- 
tory. Extracts are given in Lee, Nos. 22-24; Colby, Nos. 5 and 6; and 
Kendall, Nos. 3 and 4. Cook and Tinker, Select Translations from 
Old English Poetry, contains good examples of the poetry of this period. 
Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 25-37. 

Poetry. — Alexander Smith, Edwin of Deira. The romances of 
Arthur and his knights seem to refer to the period of the contest between 
the Britons and the West-Saxon invaders, but in the only forms in which 
they can now be found they are imbued with the spirit of later mediaeval 
romance, as in Malory, Morie Darthur, or with modern ideals, as in 
Tennyson, Idylls of the King. 

Special Topics. — (1) Conversion of Edwin, Bede, Ecclesiastical His- 
tory, Book II, chap, xii; (2) Synod of Whitby, ibid., Book III, chap, xxv; 
(3) Caedmon, ibid., Book IV, chap, xxiv; (4) Beowulf, Cook and Tinker, 
Translations from Old English Poetry, 9-24; (5) Venerable Bede, Green, 
Short History, chap, i, sect. 4; (6) Classes of People among the Early 
Anglo-Saxons, Traill, Vol. I, pp. 122-129; (7) Heathen Religion of the 
Anglo-Saxons, ibid., 149-153; (8) Establishment of Christianity, ibid., 153- 
161 ; (9) Dress and Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons, ibid., 222-227. 



CHAPTER V 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND. 830-975 




43. The Incursions of the Danes. ^-The supremacy obtained 
by Egbert, king of the West Saxons, as has been said, was not 
a real union of England. No measures were taken to unite the 
whole country under a government exercising its power from 
Winchester, the West Saxon capital. As a matter of fact, the 
West Saxon kings had now to enter into a struggle to retain any 
of their dominions, for new invaders and settlers were ,, 
making their way into England, threatening to overwhelm 
the English much as the 
latter had overwhelmed 
the Britons three cen- 
turies before. 

Just at the close of 
the^ighth century, while 
Egbert had been in exile Remains of a Danish Shi P 

at the court of Charles the Great, these new enemies began 
to ravage the shores of the British Isles and of the continent. 
They were known among themselves as "Vikings," in England 
generally as " Danes," in Ireland as " Ostmen," and on the con- 
tinent as " Northmen." They came from the shores of Sweden, 
Norway, and Denmark, in boats carrying thirty or forty men each, 
built shallow though long, and thus <> capable of being rowed far 
up the rivers. Thus they landed at entirely unexpected places. 
Since they were heathen they did not hesitate to plunder mon- 
asteries and nunneries, whose gold and silver ornaments, jeweled 
robes and utensils, numerous flocks of sheep and undefended 
crops of grain furnished them abundant booty. 

59 



60 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The progress of civilization had also produced much in the 
possession of the people of country and town that was attractive 
to these barbarians. So not only monasteries but towns and whole 
stretches of country were devastated. In addition to seizing what 
they could carry away they inflicted terrible cruelties upon those 
who fell into their power, and made havoc with fire and sword 
for the pure love of destruction. The lands along the coasts and 
rivers of France and Spain suffered grievously from these ravages, 
but England was still more unfortunate, since her territory was 
open to the sea rovers on all sides. The first recorded attack on 
England was in the year 787 a.d. A few years later the " pirates " 
came again, plundered the monastery of Lindisfarne, and mur- 
dered its monks ; then they appeared again and again, till scarcely 
a year passed without visitations on some part or other of the coast 
and even far inland. The Chronicle tells how " Hereberht the 
ealdorman was slain by the heathen men, and many of the Fen- 
men with him ; and afterwards, the same year, in Lindsey, and in 
East Anglia, and in Kent many men were slain by the enemy." 
And again : '" This year King ^Ethelwulf fought at Charmouth 
against the crews of ninety-five ships, and the Danish-men main- 
tained possession of the field." 

The English seemed unable to drive them away. A united 
resistance could seldom be made to invaders who appeared so 
suddenly and in such unexpected places. The ealdorman or 
local chieftain could call out the men of his part of the country 
to fight in a body known as the " fyrd," and generally this local 
force was all that there was to oppose the pillagers. But even 
when a body of Danish plunderers was opposed by the king with 
a more considerable army the invaders were apt to be more than 
a match for the English. They used great battle-axes which were 
more effective than the spears and swords of the English; all 
their warriors were protected by coats of linked mail and helmets, 
while these were used only by a few of the leaders among the 
English; and they fought with a fierce recklessness which was 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 



61 



almost irresistible. " The Danes had possession of the field " 
closes up many an entry in the Chronicle during this period. 

44. The Danish Army Soon another stage of invasion was 

entered upon by the Danes. Large bands began to make their 
headquarters in various parts of the country, remaining perma- 
nently in England and living by ravaging. These bodies of plun- 
derers drew together till they formed a united body, — " the 
army," as the English called it, — which in successive summers 
made long forays through Kent, East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia, 
and Wessex, and in the winters settled 
down to enjoy their booty. Their usual 
plan was to row up some river or deep 
harbor, fortify a camp by throwing a dike 
across a headland or other favorable spot, 
drag their boats on the shore, seize horses 
where they could find them, and sweep 
pillaging across the country, till the slowly 
gathering fyrd under the ealdorman of 
the district became dangerous, or till 
rumors came of an army marching to 
meet them. Then they retired to their 
camp and if necessary soon rowed away 
to a new landing place. We hear how in East Anglia "King 
Edmund fought against them, but the Danes got the victory and 
slew the king and subdued all the land and destroyed all the 
churches they came to. They came to Medeshamstead and 
burned and beat it down, and slew the abbot and monks and all 
that they found there. And that place which before was full rich 
they reduced to nothing." The heathen army became constantly 
more numerous and more bold, till most of England lay at its 
mercy. One part of the country after another was laid under 
contribution for its support or was swept clear of everything 
which the invaders wanted. The monasteries were destroyed ; 
villages burned ; London, Canterbury, Rochester. Winchester, 




Danish Battle-Axe (length, 

15 inches; weight, 

7 pounds) 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

York, and other old towns sacked, and the rising prosperity and 
culture of the country crushed. 

45. Formation of the Danelaw. — Little by little the Danish 
invasion entered upon a third stage, — that of settlement. A 
Danish half of England grew up. The " army " had spent most 
of its time in East Anglia, eastern Mercia, and southern North- 
umbria. In these portions of the country the old lines of kings 
had died out and Danish kings or " jarls " l held the mastery over 
the people. The native English population was already doubt- 
less much reduced, and the less restless spirits among the Danes 
settled down among them, seizing lands where they wished them, 
even while those who wished still to plunder continued their raids 
through the parts of the country still unravaged. The same 
Danish warriors who had joined in plundering forays or followed 
their king as fighting men in the great army, when they found 
such occupation too dangerous, distasteful or unprofitable, settled 
down as farmers or embarked on trading ventures. New settlers 
came from Denmark and Norway to settle in the parts of Eng- 
land which were under the rule of Danish kings and chieftains. 

The extent of this immigration and settlement can be traced 
by the Danish names of places, which were either new settlements 
or old English towns and villages renamed by their new inhabit- 
ants and rulers. Whereas in the Anglo-Saxon districts names of 
villages and towns usually end in to?i or ham, in the districts occu- 
pied by the Danes or Northmen they end more commonly in by 
or thorpe. Gradually the whole east and much of the north came 
to be more Danish than English in population, in customs, and 
in law. It was even acknowledged by the West Saxon kings to be 
independent. In the unending struggle on their part to protect 
Wessex from Danish plundering they were so hard pressed that 
they were glad to purchase temporary immunity for the west and 

1 The Danieh word jarl, pronounced yarl, corresponded to the English 
word ealdorman, and later gave rise to the word earl, the ruler under the 
king of a division of the country. 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 63 

south by yielding to the Danes the north and east. In 886 a.d. 
an agreement was entered into between Alfred, the West Saxon 
king, and Guthrum, a Danish king, defining the boundaries between 
them as follows : " First, concerning the land boundaries : upon 
the Thames, and then up on the Lea, and along the Lea to its 
source, then right to Bedford, then up on the Ouse to Watling 
street." l According to this treaty England was practically divided 
into two parts, one under the Danes and one under the West 
Saxon kings. Because all matters were settled by Danish law in 
the former district it came to be known as the " Danelaw." 

46. The Danes as Traders. — The Danelaw differed in many 
respects from the more purely Anglo-Saxon parts of England. 
Men of this section even yet are taller and lighter in complexion 
than the average of the rest of the country, and it is generally 
believed that this is due to the Danish mixture in the population. 
The most marked change introduced by the Danes was the habit 
of trading with foreign lands and the consequent growth of towns 
in England as centers at which trade was carried on. In Nor- 
way, Denmark, and Sweden there was an active trade with Ireland 
and Iceland, with the coast lands of the Baltic Sea, and with dis- 
tant regions to the southward. Even yet Arabic coins are found 
in the Scandinavian countries, where fairs were held to which 
merchants came from various parts of Europe and the East. 
Danish traders from England took part in all the lines of com- 
merce of which they had known before they came to England. 

At places where traders gathered and lived, new towns grew 
up. Old towns, which may have survived from Roman times, — 
though reduced to almost nothing in population and wealth in 

1 This agreement is commonly known as the " Treaty of Wedmore," 
though it did not take place there. What really occurred at Wedmore 
took place eight years before, when Guthrum made a temporary peace with 
Alfred, was entertained by him, and was baptized as a Christian, together 
with thirty of his followers. It is also known as the " Treaty of Chippen- 
ham," but with no more propriety, as it is not known where this agreement 
was drawn up. 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the meantime, — were revived, gained inhabitants, and adopted 
modes of life which were very different from those of the country 
villages. The " Five Boroughs " was a name given to Stamford, 
Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, and Lincoln, five towns under 
Danish control, each of which had a government of its own with 
special town courts and laws, but forming a sort of confederacy 
among themselves. York, Chester, and other old towns of the 
north became more prosperous, seaport towns grew up along the 
coast, and London itself regained its old trading life and was 
occupied by a population a large part of whom were Danes. 

Gradually the Christian population among whom they had 
settled drew the Danish invaders from their heathenism, larger 
numbers of them betook themselves to peaceful occupations, 
and distant raids attracted those devoted to warfare to France, 
Spain, Scotland, and Ireland. The old bishoprics were reestab- 
lished, and some of the monasteries rebuilt. Wars between the 
rulers of the Danelaw and the West Saxon kings occurred from 
time to time, but they were wars, not mere plundering raids. 

47. King Alfred. — The turning back of the tide of Danish 
conquest, the restriction of Danish rulers and settlers to the east- 
ern half of the country, and the reorganization of the West Saxon 
monarchy within its narrower limits were largely the work of the 
West Saxon king, Alfred. 1 Alfred has been loved by all subse- 
quent generations because of his personal character, and admired 
and respected because of his abilities and of the work that he 
accomplished. He was the youngest son of King Ethelwulf of 
Wessex and grandson of Egbert. He was born in Wantage about 
842 a.d. and died about 900 a.d. He was taken to Rome twice in 
his early boyhood, and made the. acquaintance of the pope then 
reigning and of various other prominent churchmen and rulers. 
He was of weak health, though he was devoted to hunting and 
was a skillful and active leader in war through his whole life. 
Nevertheless his inclinations were distinctly intellectual. A story 
1 The Anglo-Saxon form of his name is Alfred. 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 65 

has come down of a promise made by his mother to her five sons 
to give a certain illuminated manuscript of Saxon poems to the 
one who would first commit them to memory. Alfred, although 
the youngest, immediately betook himself to the task and with the 
help of his teacher learned the verses and obtained the prize. His 
fondness for literature and eager desire for knowledge remained 
lifelong characteristics. 

As Alfred grew to manhood the Danes were ravaging not only 
the coast lands and Mercia but the West Saxon lands also, and 
soon after his accession to the throne he was actually forced to 
abandon the struggle temporarily and retire to the forests, leav- 
ing all England to the attacks of the invaders. But this was the 
worst of the storm. Soon the spirit of the West Saxons revived. 
In a chance engagement a Danish force was defeated and their 
famous war flag called " The Raven " was captured. Alfred seized 
this opportunity to come down from the moors to build a fort and 
man it with a small garrison at Athelney. Then, gathering the 
fyrd from the western districts about him, he made a series of 
attacks upon the invaders. Hard fighting forced the Danes in 
878 to enter into an agreement with Alfred by which the Danish 
king with his principal followers accepted Christian baptism as 
a sign of their intention to cease plundering. This was at Wed- 
more, as already described, and was followed a few years after- 
wards by the Treaty of Wedmore, which laid the foundations of 
the Danelaw. The peace was but poorly kept, for Guthrum was 
only one of several Danish rulers, and those who reigned over 
other districts or who came to England later were not bound by 
his agreements. So fighting by no means came to an end. Yet 
Alfred more than held his own in the half of England which was 
under his control, and every Danish invasion of it was repelled. 

48. Military Reforms. — It was in these later contests that 
Alfred's originality in military devices showed itself. He kept 
some soldiers under arms so that they should not be taken off 
their guard ; he reorganized the fyrd by calling out only one half 



66 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of the fighting men at a time, so that the cultivation of the fields 
might not come to a standstill; he built "burghs" or fortified 
camps, where soldiers could be stationed permanently ; he pro- 
vided for the fortification and guarding of the towns so that the 
invaders could be held in check till the fyrd came ; and built and 
manned vessels so that he might meet the Danes on their own 
element and deprive them of their old unrestricted freedom of 
invasion and retreat by sea. The result was that not only the 
south and west of England were more securely defended but that 
a military system was organized which was afterwards used to 
drive the Danes out of the Danelaw. 

49. Reforms in Law. — In the more peaceful years of Alfred's 
reign he devoted the same energy, originality, and broad-minded 
judgment to the works of peace that he had applied to the con- 
test with the invaders. One of the fruits of this was the new 
body of laws or " dooms " which he issued. Written collections of 
laws or formal statements of the customary law on certain sub- 
jects had been already drawn up and promulgated by various 
kings, with the agreement of the "witan" or great men of the 
country. The earliest of these was issued by Ethelbeft, king of 
Kent, about the time of Augustine, at the close of the sixth cen- 
tury. Other collections had been issued from time to time by 
Kentish, Mercian, and West Saxon monarchs. That now issued 
by Alfred was gathered principally from these earlier codes. His 
work consisted in laying down general principles, in selecting and 
restating old rules, not in the establishment of new ones. As he 
declares in the preface to his laws, " Those things which I met 
with, either of the days of Ine, my kinsman, or of Offa, king of 
the Mercians, or of Ethelbert, who first among the English race 
received baptism, those which seemed to me the most right, those 
I have gathered together, and rejected the others." There are 
many provisions in these laws on a great variety of subjects, as, 
for instance, " If any one fight in the king's hall, or draw his 
weapon, and he be taken, it shall depend on the doom of the 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 6y 

king whether he have life or death " ; or, " If any one dig a water- 
pit, or open one that is shut up and close it not again ; let him 
pay for whatever cattle may fall therein." But most of the clauses 
declare the forms of punishment and the amounts of fines for 
criminal offenses. 

50. The New Literature. — Probably the most conspicuous work 
done by Alfred was the reestablishment of education and litera- 
ture after their decay during the ravages of the Danes. The old 
literary and learned life of the northern monasteries represented 
by Bede and Caedmon had disappeared. Alfred made a new cen- 
ter for learning and literature at his capital of Winchester, infused 
new life into them, and himself set the fashion of writing prose 
works in English. For even in Wessex, where the marauding 
of the Danes had not been long continued, and still more so 
further east and north, ignorance and loss of interest in intellectual 
matters were almost complete. Alfred himself declared, " So clean 
was learning decayed among English folk that very few were 
there on this side of the Humber that could understand their 
service books in English or translate aught out of Latin into Eng- 
lish, and I think there were not many beyond the Humber. So 
few of them were there that I cannot bethink me of even one 
when I came to the kingdom." He says again, "In old times 
men came hither from foreign lands to seek for instruction, and 
now if we are to have it, we can only get it from abroad." So 
he was compelled to draw learned men into Wessex by appoint- 
ing them to positions as abbots and bishops or about his court. 
From the western districts of Mercia, from Wales, France, and 
Germany, Alfred gathered, one by one, a group of learned men 
as teachers and churchmen. He established three new abbeys, 
and helped some of those which had been destroyed by the 
Danes to regain their prosperity. 

He also set up a school for young nobles and others of well- 
to-do parentage in his own court, where they were taught to read 
English and, if they went on far enough, Latin. Here English 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

poems as well as more serious books were learned and the old 
heathen and early Christian poetry translated into the West 
Saxon dialect, in which we now have them. It is probable 
that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the most important source of 
information about early English history, was put into form at this 
time. Old annals which have since disappeared may have been 
used, Bede was drawn upon, and the results put together into 
an English chronicle. This was subsequently kept up as a con- 
temporary record, according to Alfred's instructions. 

The king himself after he grew to middle life learned to read 
Latin, and translated several books into English with the object 
of making them more accessible. He expanded these and intro- 
duced into them a number of additions from his own experience 
or from other sources. He says, "When I remember how the 
knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England, 
and yet that many could read English writing, then I began among 
other various and manifold occupations of this kingdom to translate 
into English." He translated and reedited in this way Gregory's 
Pastoral Care, Orosius's History of the World, and some other 
works. He apologizes for the crudity of his work by saying, " Do 
not blame me, if any know Latin better than I, for every man must 
say what he says and do what he does according to his ability." He 
had no need to make excuses, for his style is clear and vigorous, 
and he left a model of good English prose writing which afterwards 
bore fruit in much writing in the language of the people. 

51. Alfred's Interests and Character. — Alfred took a keen 
interest in affairs beyond the limits of his own country, though 
his active life gave him no chance of leaving England after he 
became king. Still he sent representatives with gifts and mes- 
sages to Rome and to other distant lands, encouraged foreign trad- 
ers to bring their wares to England, and engaged Frisians to man 
his newly built ships and to teach seamanship to his people. 

The strong impression which King Alfred has left on later times 
is as much the result of what he was as of what he did. Everything 



urajcjij^.imi&Stbbeorngom Sc-em>e; < ■ - -> 

AH- "Dcclxpcvii. neyi|dmbcjilTrpccymtTC 
/ oj^on nohxtp. a©bupge -jonrur fcojutn cotncm 
<Cjttfr»m«(cypu twjw m^naochrtpfla. Wfce- 
/j|xl pgc pct^ jrapzDjMfr .*jfctcpobc "oppanTO^cn- 
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man ofj4oli |w.;-Dcerj7(r}icm \<x rfjtejoin rttpu *e 
tii|*cptnattrux. femmgdcsmnerUnv^fobxxm- 
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ounojij? rrymbpi LtfiDe <fcrt?trtcan Wle. on<im> 
non-Seprmtoriafokejihr cYkKjvpi vm?c mkjupum* 
. \ H« fcccligpcpe • neupajr alt: rata nortf kvm_ 

bpacvntng opiic^i^ianpjan.oti.vutt.K.octofe'. 
-ibeopmUc Uokr jjoeplome^crepm (?oqi]?4r»i heoj: 
rl^en t*m iHeptft bebvftsrtv cniliaju(balz)er cc . 

acka.-"Tornd> aUbne&epSurmtragTOjtta* *.tcazp 

dim jwcerUiruept. » - * 

3_h* ttccvc- hc|i^l^y[Trd^cebi|x»pp>pJj' 

, pnt?en(?ailcan gmjie par gecajien ce^d fteap aW 

zQapcehiycQipnofju& nop liymbjia cvmnj mr 

berpcm -jopjuce afcprpfr- "ja^el neb aW[t>abcr 



The Years 786-790 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 69 

that is known about him shows him as singularly lovable. He had 
the highest ideals of his duties and opportunities as king, and seems 
to have carried them out with a combined ability and devotion 
almost unknown among rulers. Notwithstanding his position, his 
gifts, and his success, he was exceedingly simple-minded, sincere, 
and devout. In all the records of him that exist there is not a single 
statement that puts a blemish upon his great and good character. 

52. Closer Union of England. — The work and the personality 
of Alfred resulted not only in saving and reestablishing the West 
Saxon monarchy but in preparing the way for a more complete 
union of all England than the mere overlordship obtained by 
Egbert. Sussex and Kent had been absorbed into the West Saxon 
kingdom during or soon after the time of Egbert. On the expul- 
sion of the old Mercian royal line by the Danes all of that king- 
dom which did not become part of the Danelaw was treated by 
Alfred as part of his own dominions and placed under his son- 
in-law as ealdorman. The common body of laws, drawn from 
Kentish, Mercian, and West Saxon codes alike, the chronicle of 
all England, the new literature, the united military operations, 
and the personal influence and policy of Alfred and his suc- 
cessors bound all these parts more closely together. Although 
almost one half of England was, at the time of the death of 
Alfred, still under the rule of Danish kings and jarls, the rest 
was held firmly by its West Saxon kings and united more closely 
than ever. Events soon led to the increase of their dominions. 

53. Winning Back of the Danelaw. — Notwithstanding the 
several periods of peace obtained by Alfred during his reign, 
at the time of his death he was engaged in war not only with 
new Danish invaders but with the rulers of the Danelaw, who 
gave them support. This contest continued under Edward 1 

1 The Anglo-Saxon form of his name is Eadweard. This Edward, the 
son of Alfred, is known as Edward the Elder. His reign was from 901 
to 924. He was buried beside his father at Winchester, in the "New 
Minster" which Alfred had begun and which he himself finished. 



70 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and ^Ethelstan, the son and grandson of Alfred, and was steadily 
favorable to the English. The same conflict was carried on by 
Alfred's daughter ^Ethelflaed, the " Lady of the Mercians," as 
she was called, because she and her husband Ethelred had been 
appointed by the king to rule English Mercia. The English lead- 
ers had learned the Danish methods of fighting and were in a 
position to use them more effectually than the Danes themselves. 
The result of the wars was to win for the West Saxon kingdom 
the Danelaw, piece by piece. The Danish kings who ruled over 
old East Anglia, Essex, and York, the jarls who ruled under them, 
and those who held the district of the Five Boroughs were, in 
the course of time, one after another defeated and driven into 
exile and their dominions added to those of the English king. 
The difficulty in reuniting them was slight. The Danish popula- 
tion was not disturbed, except those who were killed in battle, 
and no distinction was made between the two races. Nobles of 
Danish blood came to the meetings of the great men of the coun- 
try called by the English kings, and Danes were made priests, 
bishops, or abbots on the same footing as Englishmen. 

The rule of the West Saxon kings was extended during the 
same period not only over all the lands which had ever been 
settled and ruled by Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, but over the old 
native kingdoms to the west and north. From time to time, 
compelled by invasion or by the threat of it, or induced by good 
policy, some of the Celtic princes would make more or less com- 
plete submission to the English king. In 926 ^Ethelstan was 
acknowledged as their superior king by Howel and Owen, kings 
of the two divisions of Wales, by the king of Cumbria or Strath- 
clyde, and by the king of the Scots, who by this time ruled most 
of what we now know as Scotland. There was always after this 
time a real though often neglected claim on the part of the Eng- 
lish kings to rule over the whole island of Britain. This was indi- 
cated by the form of the titles used by them. Alfred, like his 
predecessors, had only called himself "King of the West Saxons," 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 



7* 




Coin of King Edgar, 957-975 



until late in his reign, when he seems to have adopted the title 
"King of the Anglo-Saxons," which was used also by his son 
Edward. yEthelstan in his documents added the title " Ruler of 
all Britain " to the older title, and some such title was used by 
all his successors. 

54. Rural Life in England in the Tenth Century The reign of 

Alfred and the seventy-five years which followed were a period 
in which almost everything which was characteristic of later Saxon 
England was rapidly taking shape. By the time of Edgar * the 
"Peaceful," his great-grandson, who 
reigned from 957 to 975, the race, 
language, religion, customs, form of 
government, and divisions of the 
country were, in their main charac- 
teristics, what they were long to 
remain, and in some respects what 
they are still. The foundations of the nation had now been laid. 
What these foundations were will be described in the remainder 
of this chapter, which refers to the period about 950 a.d. 

The people, generally speaking, lived in villages, in one-roomed 
cottages, which were built of upright poles, laced in and out like 
basket work with cross poles, the cracks being filled with a coat- 
ing of mud or plaster and the whole thatched with straw. The 
timber-built dwelling of the landowner who was lord over the vil- 
lage, or perhaps sometimes the whole village, was surrounded by 
a mound and ditch, with a palisade upon it. This inclosed hall or 
village was called a tun. The group of villagers were spoken of as 
the tunscip or township. The name "town" or "township" came 
later to be applied to the whole village with the lands which 
stretched around it. All the domestic animals and familiar grains 
were known and raised, though the cattle were very small and the 
crops raised were poor. Agriculture was much cruder than in 
Roman times, and famines were frequent. Swine were valued 

1 The Anglo-Saxon form of his name is Eadgar. 



72 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

more than any other domestic animals, as they could be fed from 
the acorns and beechnuts which grew in the forests and woods 
that were then scattered almost everywhere over England. One 
nobleman in his will bequeaths two thousand swine, and another 
leaves a piece of land to the church on condition that two hun- 
dred swine are fed upon it for the use of his wife. 

Most of the people in the country were in a position of subor- 
dination to the thegns, and owed to them payments, services, and 
support. There were many slaves, some being born bondmen, 
others captured in war and sold into slavery, and still others 
reduced to slavery for debt or for crime. Slaves were often freed 
by will as a pious act. 

55. Town Life. — Although the great mass of the population 
were country dwellers, occupying these rural villages or hamlets, 
towns were beginning to spring up again not only in the Danish 
districts but in other places. By the middle of the tenth cen- 
tury probably some fifty or sixty places had come to have a much 
larger population than the ordinary villages. Such a borough 
or city had a market and some trade, a wall, several churches, 
and local laws or customs acknowledged by the king. It was 
under the special peace of the king, and a royal officer repre- 
sented him in it. Yet town life grew up but slowly. Much of 
the work of the townsmen was still expended upon the land 
and pasture fields outside of the walls, and they had very gen- 
erally to perform services and make payments to the king or to 
some other lord, like villagers. More varied forms of industry, 
however, were growing up as a basis for town life. In some 
places fishing furnished not only food for the fishermen but, in the 
form of smoked or salt. fish, provided something to sell to traders, 
and led to trade with other parts of England and with foreign 
countries. This was the origin of a number of towns on the coast. 
Other places were favorably situated for trade because they were 
on harbors or rivers, or were centers of attraction because they 
were the location of monasteries with sacred relics to which 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 73 

pilgrimages were made. Such places came more and more to be 
occupied by men who made most or all of their living by buying 
and selling, or by handicrafts, such as blacksmith's work, car- 
penter's work, weaving, shoemaking and other work in leather, 
and even finer work, such as the making of jewelry and musical 
instruments. Thus towns grew up in which life was quite differ- 
ent from that in the country villages. London became again, as 
it had been in Roman times, and as it was always afterwards 
to remain, the principal city in England, quite displacing Win- 
chester, the old West Saxon capital, from its position of relative 
importance. In several of the towns " moneyers " were estab- 
lished, who received silver from the king and coined it into silver 
pennies, which remained the usual form of money for many cen- 
turies. On most of the coins of this period the name or initial of 
the "moneyer" appears, as well as that of the king. 

Instead, therefore, of the barbaric life of the early destroyers of 
the civilization of Roman Britain, who had supported themselves 
and occupied themselves by plundering, hunting, and a little agri- 
culture, there had come now into existence much more varied 
forms of livelihood and a much more civilized type of life, though 
it was still poor, rough, and coarse compared with modern life. 
Hunting and hawking and outdoor trials of skill served as the 
more active amusements of the upper classes, while the tricks of 
jugglers, quiet games, such as draughts or checkers, and songs 
of gleemen or minstrels, gave indoor interest when the chase was 
impossible. 

56. Poetry in the Tenth Century. — Religious poetry like that 
of Caedmon was still written, Bible stories serving as its subjects. 
But there were also many war songs and ballads on subjects of 
personal interest. The English as a nation were very fond of 
ballads and songs, and their gleemen made and sang them on all 
occasions. Most of these of course have disappeared, but some 
have been preserved by being inserted in the Chronicle. One of 
the best is a ballad on the battle of Brunanburh, fought in 937 



74 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



between King ^Ethelstan and a combined army of Danes, Scots, 
Picts, and Welsh. It begins : 

iEthelstan king, 

Of earls the lord, 

Ring-giver to his men; . 

His brother with him, 

Edmund the aetheling, 

Gained life-long glory 

By slaying in fight, 

With the edge of the sword, . 

At Brunanburh. 

The whole poem has life, spirit, and warlike ring. Another of 
gentler character describes the death of Edgar in 975 : 

Here brought to an end 

His joys on earth 

Edgar king of the English ; 

Chose for himself another light, 

Pleasant and beautiful, 

Left this frail 

This transitory life. 

Another battle-poem referring to a fight with the Danes at Mal- 
don in 991, and describing the death of Earl Byrhtnoth, exists 
only in -fragmentary form, its beginning and end both being lost, 
but it gives a fine glimpse of the life and ideas of the time. 
When the sea rovers demand tribute the old ealdorman answers 
their messenger as follows : 

Hear, thou Viking, what this folk say. 
Spear-points they will give for tribute, 
Swords of old time, venomed edges, 
Battle-gear that brings no profit ! 
Viking herald, take the message ! 
Here stand I, an earl, and guarding 
With my host our fatherland. 

57. Prose Writing. — There was not so much writing in prose 
as in poetry. Still, Alfred's work set a good example. Certain 
parts of the Chronicle were written with fullness and skill, and in 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 75 

the monasteries religious works and some others on medical and 
scientific subjects were written in either Latin or Anglo-Saxon. 
The most famous of the monastic writers who used the native lan- 
guage was JElfric, who lived just at the close of the tenth century, 
a hundred years after Alfred and three hundred after Bede and 
Casdmon. He was a monk living most of his life either at Win- 
chester or at Eynsham near Oxford, where he became abbot of 
the monastery. He wrote voluminously both in Latin and in 
Anglo-Saxon, and translated many things from Latin into the 
latter language ; among them a Latin grammar, a reading book 
for boys, a number of homilies or short sermons for unlearned 
priests, and various theological works. His influence led to more 
writing in Anglo-Saxon by a number of less important writers. 
Most of the Bible was translated about this time into Anglo- 
Saxon, some of its books being translated word for word, others 
in a short paraphrase or abridgment. 

58. The Old English Language. — Anglo-Saxon or Old English 
was thus established as a settled literary language, of which 
grammars and glossaries were prepared for the use of students at 
the time, and in which there was a considerable body of familiar 
literature. Its similarity to modern English is easily recognizable, 
though it cannot be read without special study of its forms, con- 
structions, and many of its words. As an example, a few words 
from the Chronicle under the year 1005 may be taken; a state- 
ment that might unhappily have been made for many years. 

Her on thyssun geare waes se mycla hungor geond 

Here in this year was so . great famine throughout 

Angel cynn swilce nan man aer ne gemunde 

English people such as no man before ever remembered 
swa grimme. 
so severe. 

A special form of letters was generally though not always used. 

59. Learning and the Church. — There were many studious and 
even learned men in the monasteries, except at times of the 



76 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

greatest confusion and disaster; and after the middle of the 
tenth century this class increased. Some nobles also could at 
least read and write, and these encouraged by their patronage 
the production of books by the learned clergy. 

This increase of learning and literature was largely due to 
the reestablishment of the monasteries after the ravages of the 
heathen Danes. Now, as in the early Saxon times, the Chris- 
tian church represented the more intellectual elements of civi- 
lization, and the prosperity of the church brought about the 
elevation of education. As the Danelaw was won back by the 
West Saxon kings, and as the Danish settlers accepted Chris- 
tianity, the bishoprics were restored, though with somewhat dif- 
ferent boundaries, and most of the destroyed monasteries were 
re founded and newly endowed with lands. It was in these mon- 
asteries alone that the literature, learning, and art of the time 
existed, and in these that the chronicles of the times were pre- 
served and continued. The influence of several famous and pow- 
erful bishops and abbots in the tenth century was second only to 
that of the kings and great ealdormen. 

60. Dunstan. — The most conspicuous churchman of this period 
was Dunstan, the son of a West Saxon thegn, who was educated at 
the monastery of Glastonbury, to which learned monks from Ire- 
land often came, and at the king's court at Winchester. He 
lived to become successively an abbot, a bishop, and archbishop 
of Canterbury. During the reigns of Edgar and his immediate 
successors, from about 957 to 988, Dunstan was the principal 
adviser of the king and in many ways the real ruler of the king- 
dom. From his time forward the archbishop of Canterbury came 
to have an almost invariably recognized right and duty to be the 
principal adviser of the king. Dunstan was a witty, eloquent 
man, a good musician, mechanic and artist, and the shrewdest 
statesman of the time. He made Glastonbury, of which while 
still a very young man he became abbot, a prosperous and orderly 
monastery, with a famous school library. From Glastonbury as a 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 



77 




Some of the Principal Early Monastic Houses 



center many monks went out to build again the old monasteries 
and to organize new ones. Dunstan was untiring in his efforts 
to obtain grants of land and privileges from the king for these 



78 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

monasteries and bishoprics, and at the same time to see that the 
religious bodies kept themselves in order. At least eighteen 
abbeys were established directly or indirectly by his influence. 
The whole monastic revival which was such a marked feature of 
the tenth century owed much to Dunstan. After his death Dun- 
stan became a popular hero and saint, legendary accounts of his 
life were written, and for centuries afterwards numberless tales 
about him were told among the people. 

61. Political Organization. — The form of government also had 
by this time become definitely established. The king was elected 
to the throne by the nobles and great churchmen of the country. 
Although the form of election was always gone through with, it 
was not customary to go outside of the royal family in choosing 
the king, and the choice fell as a matter of course on the oldest 
grown-up son of the late king, if there was one. When elected 
the king was crowned by the archbishop of Canterbury with reli- 
gious ceremonies, and took an oath to rule with justice, diligence, 
and piety. Many of the forms regularly used now in the corona- 
tion sendee have come down almost unchanged from the time of 
Edgar or even before. 

62. The Witenagemot. — The great ealdormen, royal officers, 
bishops, and abbots met from time to time to give advice to the 
king and to discuss with him important matters of a public char- 
acter. These great men of the country were known as the wita?i, 
and their meeting was spoken of as a witenagemot} Occasionally 
the witan acted in opposition to the king or forced him to follow 
their judgment, though strong kings succeeded in acting with 
almost complete independence. For the most part, however, the 
king summoned the witenagemot and with its agreement appointed 
the great officials of church and state, promulgated changes in the 
law, made grants of land, arranged for military expeditions and 
national payments, and in general carried on the work of 

1 The word gemot (in which the g is hard), mote, mot or moot, was used 
for any kind of a formal meeting. 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 79 

government, with the witan as advisers. There were instances 
where the king was deposed by the witan, and it was of course 
they who elected him. 

63. Shires. — All England south of the Humber was by this 
time divided into shires. In the southeastern part of the country 
these corresponded to the early independent kingdoms, the shires 
of Kent, Essex, Sussex, and Middlesex being the same as the 
kingdoms of the Kentishmen and of the East, South, and Middle 
Saxons. Norfolk and Suffolk were the north and south " folk " or 
branches of the East Angles. Farther westward the shires cor- 
responded to the successive settlements or conquests of the West 
Saxons, while in the center of the country the shires seem to have 
been organized around the fortresses by the West Saxon kings 
when they reconquered the country from the Danes, on the model 
of the same divisions of their own older dominions. 

Each shire was governed by an ealdorman appointed by the 
king and the witan. Sometimes one ealdorman would hold con- 
trol over several shires. He was usually a great noble having 
extensive lands in the part of the country which he governed, and 
in some cases was no doubt descended from the earlier royal 
family of that region. In some other cases he was a relative of 
the West Saxon king. He was a sort of viceroy or governor, upon 
whom devolved the calling out of the fyrd or fighting force of the 
shire and many other powers of local government. The greater 
part of the resistance to raids of the Danes was made by the 
ealdormen of the shires upon which the attacks fell. In later times 
the word earl was used instead of ealdorman. 

There was also in each shire a shire reeve, 1 an official directly 
appointed by the king and dependent on him. He collected the 
king's income in the shire, enforced the law, and saw that other 
affairs of ordinary government there were attended to. The 
landowners and other chief men of the shire gathered from time 
to time, ordinarily twice a year, in a shire mote or shire court. 

1 From which our word sheriff is derived. 



8o A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

At this meeting messages from the king were announced, lawsuits 
between important men settled, and other business attended to. 
The ealdorman, the sheriff, and the bishop were required to be 
present to explain and to carry out the law. 

64. Hundreds. — The shires were divided into smaller divisions 
which in the southern part of the country were known as hun- 
dreds, in the northern as wapentakes. In these also there was a 
periodical gathering of the more important men. They should 
meet according to law as often as once a month. This hundred 
court was the place where most of the judicial work of the people 
was done in early times. One of King Edgar's laws says, " In 
the hundred, as in every other gemot, we ordain that folk-right be 
pronounced in every suit." This included the punishment of 
crimes, the decision of disputes about right to land, and similar 
questions. The king kept an oversight over the shire and hun- 
dred courts, used his power to require them to do justice, and 
occasionally himself gave decisions on cases that were appealed 
to him. Nevertheless the people themselves in these local gath- 
erings were the judges in their own lawsuits, and no other courts 
than those of the shires and hundreds existed. 

65. Justice. — When a person was charged with a crime in a 
hundred or shire mote there were two customary ways of testing 
his guilt or innocence, the oath and the ordeal. These were 
both forms of appeal to God to show which party was telling the 
truth. The oath, or wager of law, was a requirement to furnish 
at the next court a certain number of persons known as compur- 
gators, who would each take a solemn oath that the oath taken 
by the party for whom they were swearing was a valid and credi- 
ble oath. The number of oath takers and the decision whether it 
should be the accuser or the accused who should take the oath 
and furnish the compurgators were decided by the court. 1 The 

1 This was also called compurgation. The order of the court was usually 
expressed : " He shall appear six handed," or whatever the number might 
be, meaning that he shall bring that number of compurgators with him. 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 8 1 

oaths of men of high rank were considered of more value than 
those of men lower in station. The oath of a thegn, for instance, 
equaled the oaths of six common men. 

Instead of an oath an ordeal might be demanded. The most 
common forms of ordeals were by hot iron and by water. A 
piece of iron was made red hot in a fire built in the church, 
blessed by the priest, and then carried by the accused, who had 
already performed solemn religious ceremonies, a certain number 
of paces before dropping it. His hand was next bound up and 
left covered for three days. The coverings were then removed. 
If his hand showed proofs of divine interposition to protect it 
from being burned or to heal it, he was considered innocent. If, 
however, it was blistered and sore, his guilt was supposed to be 
proved, and he failed in his case accordingly. 

In the ordeal of water, appropriate prayers were said at a pond 
or stream, after which the culprit, tied with a rope, was thrown 
into the water, If he was received by the water and sank, his 
innocence was proved ; if, on the other hand, the water rejected 
him and he floated on its surface, guilt was indicated. In either 
case he was promptly drawn out and then freed or subjected to 
the customary punishment for the offense, as the case might be. 
. Still other forms of ordeal were occasionally used. The fear of 
undergoing the ordeal must have often led men to confess or take 
to flight before the time came. The knowledge that it would act 
in this way was probably quite as much of a justification for it 
as the belief of. the people in its reality as a test. Nevertheless 
nothing better in the way of judicial trial had yet been invented 
among these primitive people, and it was at least better than to 
leave men to fight out their disputes, or blood feuds. 

The law which was enforced in the hundred mote and shire 
mote was "folk-right," that is to say, customary law as it was 
known to the people of each locality or as it had been put in 
more formal and general terms in the " dooms " or bodies of laws 
issued by successive kings. The most marked characteristic of 



82 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the laws of the time was that almost all crimes and misdemeanors 
were punished by requiring a money payment from the culprit. 
Large parts of the written laws consisted of statements of the 
amounts to be paid by offenders for offenses of different degrees 
against various persons. For instance, one section of the laws 
of Alfred provides, " If a man's thigh be pierced through let 
thirty shillings be paid him as a compensation ; if it be broken 
the compensation is likewise thirty shillings. If the leg be pierced 
below the knee there shall be twelve shillings as compensation ; 
if it be broken below the knee let thirty shillings be paid him as 
compensation ; if the great toe be struck off let twenty shillings 
be paid him as compensation ; if it be the second toe let fifteen 
shillings be paid as compensation ; if the middlemost toe be struck 
off there shall be nine shillings," etc. 

A regular sum was even payable from a murderer or his family 
to the family of the murdered man. This was called the wer 
or wergeld. It differed in amount according to the rank of the 
man killed, just as the value of an oath depended on a man's 
rank in society. For instance, one of the codes declares, "A 
ceorl's wergeld is by Mercian law two hundred shillings ; a thegn's 
wergeld is six times as much, that is, twelve hundred shillings," 
etc. The custom of money payment for crimes no doubt origi- 
nated from the fact that early law was a substitute for private 
warfare, so that a man or his family was forced to accept a money 
equivalent from an offender instead of attacking him violently. 
The fine was not all to compensate the. person injured Or his 
family and friends, for part of it went to the king in recognition 
of his position as general keeper of the public peace which the 
culprit had violated. . 

66. Classes and Ranks. — The earliest division of classes 
among the Anglo-Saxons had been that of eorl and ceorl, those 
of noble and those of common blood. This distinction, how- 
ever, gradually passed away. At the same time other distinc- 
tions had arisen, mainly those of official rank rather than of blood. 



LATER SAXON ENGLAND 83 

Etheling is a term frequently used, meaning a member of the 
royal family, a prince. Childe seems to have meant much the 
same thing. The ealdorman or earl has already been spoken of 
as the ruler of a shire or group of shires. A thegn was the sworn 
follower or dependent of the king or of an earl or any other great 
person. He frequently received a gift of land from his patron, 
and was considered to owe him special loyalty and service on 
that account. Gradually thegn came to mean merely an impor- 
tant landholder, a member of the gentry, though he might still 
be bound by personal bonds of devotion to the king or to some 
earl or bishop. Below these were the ordinary population, in 
various grades of freedom and independence according to the 
terms on which they held their lands or the extent of their per- 
sonal subordination to the thegns above them. Still below these 
were the slaves. 

67. Summary of the Late Anglo-Saxon Period. — Scarcely had 
the West Saxons in 830 definitely obtained the superiority over 
the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms when the storm of the Danish 
invasions broke upon England and raged more or less constantly 
for more than two centuries. Nevertheless during the reign of 
Alfred, from 871 to 900, the tide of conquest turned, and the 
foundations of a reorganized government and civilization were 
laid. During the three quarters of a century that followed Alfred's 
death the parts of England that had been governed by Danish 
rulers were won back, the church reestablished, the form of gov- 
ernment tolerably well settled, and a literature, the earliest in 
modern Europe in the language of the people, formed. The cus- 
toms that became established at this time, notwithstanding many 
later changes and influences, became some of the fundamental 
permanent institutions of the English race. 



General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, i, sects. 5 and 6, gives 
a vivid account of this period. It is the subject of the same author's Con- 
quest of England, chaps, i-vii. More accurate detail is given in Ramsay. 



84 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Foundations of England, Vol. I, chaps, xiv-xix. Keary, Vikings in Western 
Christendom, chap, xii, describes the Danes in England. Bowker, Alfred 
the Great, contains several chapters by different scholars. Pauli, Life 
of Alfred, is a well-known biography : one of still higher grade is Plummer, 
Life and Times of Alfred the Great. An excellent little biography for 
younger readers is Tappan, Miss E. M., In the Days of Alfred the Great. 
The Anglo-Saxon language is well described in Lounsbury, History of the 
English Language, chaps, ii and iii; the literature in Earle, Anglo-Saxon 
Literature. 

Contemporary Sources. — The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is much fuller on 
this period than on that of the previous chapter. Especially interesting 
entries are those for the years 827, 833, 851, 871, 878, 894, 937, and 978. 
A volume of Bonn's Library called Six Old English Chronicles contains a 
translation of Asser, Life of Alfred, from which most of our detailed 
knowledge of him is drawn. Numerous extracts from the Anglo-Saxon 
laws are given in Lee, 24-39, and from Asser in Colby, 8, and in 
Kendall, 6-9. The literature is well represented in Cook and Tinker, 
Translations from Old English Poetry. Other documents are to be found 
in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 38-47. 

Special Topics. — (1) Effect of the Danish Invasion in England, Traill, 
Vol. I, pp. 140-147 ; (2) the Anglo-Saxon Codes, ibid., 164-173; (3) Saxon 
and Danish Methods of Fighting, ibid., 176-184; (4) Townships, Hundreds, 
and Shires, Montague, English Constitutional History, pp. 8-1 1 ; (5) King 
and Witenagemot, ibid., pp. n-14; (6) Dunstan, Green, Conquest of 
England, pp. 269-287 ; (7) Ordeals, Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, 
No. 4, pp. 12-14; (8) Ravages of the Danes, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the 
years 855-897. 




CHAPTER VI 
THE DANISH AND THE NORMAN CONQUESTS. 975-1071 

68. Renewed Invasions by the Danes. — During the tenth cen- 
tury, while the West Saxon kings had been winning back the Dane- 
law and beating off the scattered bands of Danes and Norsemen 
who still occasionally swept down on the coasts from their head- 
quarters in Ireland, in the islands off Scotland, and on the con- 
tinent, three strong kingdoms, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, 
had grown up in the Scandinavian peninsulas. About 980 a new 
series of attacks were made thence upon England. These new 
invaders were not mere separate bands under private chieftains ; 
they came under the leadership, or at least under the authority, 
of the king of one or other of the three Scandinavian kingdoms. 
Their expeditions were therefore more persistent, more extensive, 
and more systematic than the old pillaging raids. 

Ethelred II, the "Unready," or the " Ill-counseled," as he is 
called, the son of Edgar, had a long reign, from 978 to 1014, but 
showed himself incapable and irresolute and but poorly fitted to 
cope with so great a national invasion. Besides the inactivity 
of the king there were two special causes for the weakness of the 
country in its resistance to a well-led attack from abroad. One of 
these was the poor organization of the central government. Too 
little power was in the hands of the king, and too much in the 
hands of the earls and shire courts. A change had been coming 
about for some time by which each ealdorman or earl had a whole 
group of shires under his controlj Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, 
and the other old divisions of the country seemed likely to be 
reconstructed in the form of a few great earldoms. These were 

85 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

held subject to the king but by noblemen too powerful to give 
much obedience to him. Therefore united plans and action 
against the invaders were scarcely ever obtained. The second 
difficulty was that the mass of the people were becoming less free 
and less suited to warfare. Laws were being passed and changes 
were taking place which kept them more closely occupied in 
farming, and placed them more under the control of the thegns 
than they had been in earlier and more barbarous times. The 
fyrd was thus inferior to what it had been. Under these circum- 
stances the king and the earls with their English forces seem to 
have been quite incapable of offering a successful resistance to 
the new armies of the Danes. Time and again the English were 
defeated by the invaders. 

69. Danegeld. — England was, however, as a result of the long 
period of peace and more advanced industrial life, wealthier than 
it had been. In default of sufficient military strength the king 
and witan made use of this greater wealth. They entered into a 
treaty with the Danes, agreeing to pay them a sum of money as the 
price of peace and freedom from further plundering. The first 
such treaty was entered into in the year 991, ^10,000 in silver 
being paid to the fleet and army which had been sent by Olaf, 
king of Norway. In order to make this payment it was necessary 
to collect a tax from the people. This money was called the 
Danegeld or Dane tax. It was the first tax collected from the 
whole English nation. It proved, however, to be only a tempo- 
rary settlement. New invasions took place, and besides sums 
which were paid to Danish invaders as tribute by separate dis- 
tricts, towns, and monasteries, new payments from the whole 
nation had to be made repeatedly by the king and witan. The 
resistance of the country became less and less strong, till finally, 
when Swegen, king of Denmark, led an army in person through 
the country, Ethelred fled from England with his family, and in 
10 1 7 Cnut * the Dane, son of Swegen, became king of all England. 

1 His name is also spelled Canute. 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 87 

70. Reign of Cnut. — Once having become the accepted king 
in place of the ruler of the old West Saxon line, Cnut sent many 
of his fighting men back to Denmark and carried on the govern- 
ment of England without making any distinction between his 
Danish and English subjects. He was declared elected to the 
crown by the witan of all England, was crowned by the arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and like the kings of English race issued 
a new body of laws. He retained the Danegeld, however, as a 
form of permanent national taxation, using its proceeds to pay a 
body of housecarls, a small standing army or bodyguard, made 
up no doubt mainly of soldiers of his own race. His power and 
popularity in England became so great that he felt at liberty to 
go at two different times to his kingdom of Denmark, and he also 
visited Rome to keep a vow he had made years before. 

Cnut kept profound peace in England, secured the acknowl- 
edgment of his overlordship by the Welsh princes and the king of 
Scotland, appointed capable earls, shire reeves, bishops, abbots, 
and other officials, enriched cathedrals and abbeys with grants 
of land and valuable rights, and in other ways showed himself a 
good ruler. He divided England more clearly, however, into five 
great earldoms, which would be likely to weaken it under a king 
less strong than himself. His two sons, Harold and Harthacnut, 
who reigned successively after him, left a short and bad record. 
On the death of the second of them in 1042, as there was no 
capable man of the Danish line to claim the throne, the witan 
chose as king, Edward, son of the exiled king Ethelred, who 
represented the old West Saxon line. 

71 . Foreign Connections of England. — Notwithstanding the 
fact that Edward was a direct descendant of Alfred, of Egbert, 
and of Cerdic, he was almost as much of a foreigner as Cnut. 
Marriages between members of the English royal family and of 
those of the continental countries had been frequent. Alfred's 
stepmother was a Frankish princess. Many of his descendants 
married into the royal or noble families of Europe. Exiled English 



88 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

princes also had found a refuge on the continent since Egbert 
had lived at the court of Charles the Great. These foreign mar- 
riages and protection given to exiles, along with increasing trade 
and the influence of the church, did much to keep England in 
connection with the other parts of Europe. A certain royal 
marriage which had taken place shortly before the Danish con- 
quest was of more than usual importance because it drew Eng- 
land into closer relations with the one continental land which was 
destined to exercise an especially strong and permanent influence 
upon its history. This land was Normandy. 

72 . The Origin of Normandy. — At the time the Vikings were 
carrying their expeditions most widely through Europe a body of 
Northmen under a chieftain named Rolf or Rollo, after making 
raids in several parts of France, obtained permission from the 
king of the West Franks to settle down in the district about the 
mouth of the Seine River. This was in a.d. 912, and from that 
time forward this northern district of France was occupied largely 
by Northmen. They intermarried with the earlier inhabitants, 
and gradually adopted their Christian religion, their French lan- 
guage, and their more civilized customs. Like the population of 
the Danelaw in England, they soon became almost indistinguish- 
able from those among whom they lived and from the people of 
other sections of France. 1 The name Northmen was still kept, 
however, under the form Normans, and their country was known 
as Normandy. The successors of Rollo ruled as dukes of the 
Normans, nominally dependent on the king of France but in 
reality almost independent. Their capital was at Rouen. By 
later grants and in conflicts with the neighboring nobles they car- 
ried the boundaries of the lands dependent on them on the west 

1 The Scandinavian races have in many times and countries shown a 
special capacity for-adapting themselves to the customs of the people among 
whom they have settled. In Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Russia they 
have become a part of the native races of those countries, and in the 
United States they are now rapidly mingling with our population. 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 89 

as far as Brittany, on the east as far as Flanders, and on the south 
as far as Anjou and the direct dominions of the French king. 

73. Normandy and England. — The Norman dukes frequently 
gave support and protection to the fleets of their fellow country- 
men, the Danish invaders of England. For the purpose of 
forming a closer connection with Normandy and preventing this, 
the English king Ethelred in 1002 married Emma, daughter of 
Richard, duke of the Normans. Afterwards when Ethelred was 
driven from his throne by the Danes, with his wife and children 
he took refuge at Rouen, where his sons were brought up. In 
this way a connection was created which eventually brought 
England, the larger, more populous, and wealthier, yet more 
backward and disorganized, country, much under the influence 
of Normandy. 

74. The Reign of Edward the Confessor. — When the Danish 
line ran out, and Edward, son of Ethelred, was recalled to the 
English throne, he had spent twenty-five out of his thirty years of 
life in Normandy, and was a Norman rather than an Englishman 
in language, knowledge, tastes, and feelings. He was also accom- 
panied to England by Norman relatives, nobles, and churchmen, 
and other adventurers came later from Normandy to England. 

Edward was a timid and even an effeminate man, whose harm- 
lessness and religious habits later caused him to be known as 
the "Confessor," or the "Saint." He had none of the states- 
manship of Cnut, which would have enabled him to make him- 
self a thorough English ruler notwithstanding his foreign habits ; 
nor the vigor which would have enabled him to beat down all 
opposition. His long reign of twenty-four years, therefore, was 
a period in which the king was alternately under the influence of 
the native English nobles and of his Norman associates. 

The process of grouping shires in the hands of great earls had 
gone on through the reigns of Ethelred and Cnut until all of 
England was divided into five or six provinces or earldoms, the 
earls of these being almost independent, although appointed by 



90 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the king. The real government of England during most of 
Edward's reign was in the hands of one of these men, Godwin, 
earl of Wessex. Godwin had been a West Saxon thegn, appointed 
earl by King Cnut. He had been Cnut's right-hand man, earl of 
the largest group of shires in England, governor of the kingdom 
when the king was absent in Denmark or in Rome, his principal 
adviser at home, a prudent statesman, a skillful leader in war, 
and rich in lands scattered through a great part of England. 
Therefore when Edward came to the throne there was little 
doubt that the influence of Godwin would be all-powerful. 

Except for a short period this was the case. Godwin carried 
on the rule of his own earldom and obtained the appointment of 
three of his sons to other earldoms, kept an influential position 
in most of the witenagemots that were held, and usually con- 
trolled the policy of the king. Moreover, when Godwin died, 
most of his power and influence descended to his son Harold, 
who continued to hold the most powerful position next to that 
of the king until the death of Edward in 1066. 

On the other hand, Norman influence was by no means unim- 
portant. Edward's closest personal friends and companions were 
his Norman relations and connections. Two of them possessed 
small earldoms, two others were bishops. There was also a con- 
stant immigration of Norman clergymen of lesser rank, tradesmen 
and craftsmen, such as builders and masons, and others. England 
was already being quietly but none the less deeply influenced by 
Normandy. At this period the Norman towns Rouen, Caen, 
Bayeux, Coutances, Falaise, and ten or twenty others were grow- 
ing larger, and their citizens were devoting themselves to trade 
and manufactures. The Normans were great builders, and 
churches, castles, and town buildings in Normandy were being 
built strongly of stone, while in England they were still almost 
invariably built of wood. 

The development of peaceful pursuits was made more possible 
at this time than it had been in the past by the adoption in 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 91 

Normandy of what was called the " Truce of God." The Truce 
of God was a plan or agreement widely urged by the clergy in 
the early part of the eleventh century, and later introduced 
officially into some countries and provinces for the purpose of 
diminishing the constant violence and warfare. In its earliest 
form it was a proposal to refrain from the use of arms altogether, 
but as modified later and as introduced as a law into Normandy 
by the duke and his council in 1042 it only provided that there 
should be no private warfare or other fighting or disorder from 
sunset of each Wednesday till sunrise of the next Monday. 
Therefore while Ethelred and Cnut and Edward the Confessor 
were ruling in England, Normandy was becoming a wealthy and 
populous country, well fitted to exercise influence over England 
should they be brought into closer contact. 

75. Duke William and Earl Harold. — The dukes of Nor- 
mandy found it a difficult task to keep their turbulent barons 
in order, and time and again revolts of these barons had to be 
put down by hard fighting. When Robert, the fifth duke from 
Rolf, died in 1035 he left in the charge of guardians an only 
son named William, a mere child of seven years and of illegiti- 
mate birth, his mother being the daughter of a tanner of Falaise. 
There seemed small probability therefore that he would be able 
to retain his position and grow up to rule the duchy. Several 
times plots were made by various nobles to seize him from his 
guardians, and he had to be hidden or carried away secretly to 
some other place. Nevertheless his guardians were faithful to 
him, and he proved, while a mere boy, to possess an energy and 
ability even greater than that of his ancestors. He grew taller 
than most men of his time, was constantly active in hunting or 
in fighting, and in the difficulties of his position as he grew up 
developed shrewdness, tenacity of purpose, and quickness of 
decision. After he became a man he had three severe contests, 
— with a group of rebellious Norman barons, with the ruler of a 
neighboring province, the count of Anjou, and with his lord, the 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

king of France. From all of these he came out victorious, and 
strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of the count 
of Flanders, the next great province to the east of Normandy. 

In 105 1 William visited his cousin, the king of England. 
William was at that time a man of thirty-four ; his greatness on 
the continent was already well established, and there is little 
doubt that he had already formed the plan of having himself 
chosen to be Edward's successor as king of England. Edward 
had no children or near relatives. He was Norman in his feel- 
ings and attached to Norman associates. William was his second 
cousin, his mother and William's grandfather being sister and 
brother. William afterwards claimed that Edward promised to 
use his influence to obtain the crown for him, and this is very 
likely true, and the promise may well have been made during 
this visit. Certainly England was being drawn naturally into a 
very close connection with Normandy and was already somewhat 
used to having foreign kings. 

During the latter part of Edward's reign, however, nothing 
was done to strengthen William's claim, nor was it announced in 
any way. William was making good his position as duke of Nor- 
mandy and as the greatest of the provincial rulers of France. On 
the other hand, Earl Godwin, and after his death his son Harold, 
were becoming more and more completely the rulers of England 
in the name of the king, and were gathering the earldoms into 
the hands of members of their family. 

It was quite certain that either the great English earl or the 
great Norman duke would be the next king of England. The 
advantages of being on the ground and of more nearly repre- 
senting the national feeling were in favor of Harold. Greater 
ability and the advantages which the attacking party always has 
were in favor of William. Chance also gave William an added 
superiority, for, while cruising in the Channel, Earl Harold was 
shipwrecked on the coast of Ponthieu near Normandy and 
became an unwilling guest of the duke. He did not escape from 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 



93 




his courteous but shrewd host till he had taken an oath that he 
would aid William to obtain the English crown. 

The test came when Edward the Confessor died in January, 
1066. Whatever may have been his earlier promises to William, 
on his deathbed he acknowledged Harold as the natural claimant 
to the throne. The very next day the witan, who were gath- 
ered at London, elected 
Harold king, and he was 
crowned in Westminster 
Abbey. 

76. Invasion by Wil- 
liam. — On the other 
hand, at the news of 
Harold's election, Duke 
William immediately 
gave way to a wild fit of 
anger, asserted his claim 
to be elected king of 
England, denounced Harold as a usurper, and began preparations 
for an invasion of the country. He first consulted his principal 
nobles and then held a general assembly of all the barons of Nor- 
mandy, appealing to them for advice and assistance in his great 
adventure. He then sent ambassadors to the king of France, to 
the neighboring dukes and counts, and to the pope. To the 
pope he represented Harold as an oath breaker and the English 
people as but lukewarm in their obedience to the head of the 
church. He thus obtained from Pope Alexander a consecrated 
banner and his blessing on the work of making the English church 
and people more obedient. William appealed to the duty and 
the affections of his own Norman subjects, and promised to them 

1 The Bayeux Tapestry is a band of coarse linen, about 230 feet long 
and 20 inches wide, on which scenes from the Norman Conquest are worked 
in worsted thread. It is now preserved in the cathedral at Bayeux in Nor- 
mandy. It is supposed to have been completed soon after the Conquest. 



Earl Harold and King Edward (from the 
Bayeux Tapestry 1 ) 



94 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



and all others who should follow him rich rewards from the con- 
quered country. Earldoms should be given to nobles, bishoprics 
and abbacies to the churchmen, and the blessings of the church 
to all. The lands of Harold and of all others who resisted Wil- 
liam would be at his disposal with which to enrich those that 
helped him. 

As a result, within a few months many leaders with goodly 
groups of followers gathered from all parts of Normandy and 
the adjacent provinces to the rendezvous which William had 
appointed. Transport boats were built and contributed by the 
great nobles, and in September of the same year, 1066, William 
crossed the Channel, and was ready to fight with Harold to make 
good his claim to the crown. 

There proved to be no one to resist his landing. King Harold 
with his army was far in the north. He had obtained informa- 
tion of William's preparations and had kept an army on the south- 
ern coast all summer, watching for William's landing ; but it was 




Norman Vessels crossing the Channel (from the Bayeux Tapestry) 



almost impossible to. keep together over harvest time an army 
made up largely of peasant farmers, and when William's invasion 
was delayed Harold at last gave up the effort and most of his 
troops were scattered to their homes. Scarcely was this done when 
a new rival, a third claimant for the crown, Harold Hardrada, 
king of Norway, who represented the claims of the line of Cnut, 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 



95 



appeared far up in Yorkshire. Harold hastened to the north with 
his housecarls and personal followers, to meet him. He fought 
with the Norsemen and their allies the victorious battle of Stam- 
ford Bridge, but had no time for rest, for it was while he was on 
this campaign that the news came that William had landed. 

77. The Battle of Hastings or Senlac. — The Norman army 
landed at Pevensey, marched eastward to Hastings, and was 




Part of the Battle of Hastings (from the Bayeux Tapestry) 

ravaging that region when Harold returned hastily to London, 
where he had summoned the great earls of the north and the 
midlands to meet him with their forces. Edwin and Morkere, 
however, two brothers who held the earldoms of Mercia and 
Northumbria, held back and failed to join the king. Harold 
gathered an army as best he could from the surrounding country 
to increase the body of his housecarls and personal followers, and 
marched southward, while William awaited him in his camp at 
Hastings. As the distance between the two armies became less, 
Harold took up a position on the hill of Senlac, 1 seven miles 
north of Hastings, thus blocking the advance of the invaders and 
compelling the attack to be made by them. 

1 The battle has been called both Hastings and Senlac. The former is 
preferable on account of its greater familiarity, although the battlefield 
is really some seven or eight miles from the town of Hastings. Senlac is 
the name given to the hill by one of the contemporary writers. 



96 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

William accepted the challenge, marched northward, and here 
the critical battle was fought. It was a long and hard contest, last- 
ing from nine in the morning till after six in the evening. The 
English held their position the greater part of the day against 
the continuous attacks of the Normans, and even won tempo- 
rary successes ; but their resistance to the ever-changing attacks 
of the Normans grew weaker, till in the late afternoon the 
center of their line was at last overwhelmed by a sudden con- 
centrated onset. Harold and his two brothers were killed as 
they fought under the combined standards of their family and 
of the West Saxon royal house ; their thegns, housecarls, and the 
men who had come at the summons to the fyrd were killed or 
driven into hopeless flight. 

The southeast of England now lay open to William, but there 
was no certainty yet that he would be acknowledged by the 
English as king. The division of England into great, almost 
independent earldoms had left Harold complete royal power 
only in the south and east; the earls of Mercia and North- 
umbria had neither given him assistance at the battle nor had 
their dominions yet been invaded by William. The greater 
part of England was still unconquered, and in fact Edgar, 
" the yEtheling," a youthful but ambitious descendant of the 
old West Saxon line, was chosen king on the death of Harold 
by the witan gathered at London. 

78. The Conquest of England. — William acted with the great- 
est skill and vigor. He sent detachments, of troops through the 
southeastern shires, ravaging in some places, receiving submission 
in others. Then he marched with his main body of troops from 
Senlac back to Hastings, then to Dover, and thence by the old 
Roman road through Canterbury to Southwark, which is just 
across the river from London. Finding that the people of London 
and the north still showed no sign of inviting him to become king, 
he set Southwark on fire as a warning, marched westward, then 
northward, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, and then passed 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 



97 



some distance eastward to Berkhampstead, so as to put himself 
between the still unconquered parts of England and the great city 
which had practically become the capital of England. 

At this the witan gave way. A number of the great nobles, 
churchmen, and citizens, including Edgar ^Etheling himself, who 
had not yet been crowned and quietly ignored his own recent 
election, came out of London, offered William the crown, and 
invited him to come to the city for his coronation. Then, or 
shortly afterwards, the two great northern earls made their sub- 
mission. On Christmas Day, 1066, 
William was elected and crowned in 
Westminster Abbey. The old cere- 
monies were used, and he took the 
same oaths as the English kings before 
him had taken. 

William was now, in form at least, 
king of England, and immediately began 
the exercise of the powers and duties 
of his position. Nevertheless the con- 
quest of England was far from com- 
plete. This conquest was the work of Norman Archers (from the 




the next four years. In 1067, while 



Bayeux Tapestry) 



William was on a visit to Normandy, two revolts occurred in 
England and were put down by those to whom he had left 
the government of the country. In the spring of 1068 William 
returned and took an army into the southwest to punish the 
resistance of Exeter and other towns and districts in that part 
of the country, which had preserved a sullen half-independence. 
Later in the same year there were signs of a rising in the center 
and the north, where Edgar ^Etheling and the earls Edwin and 
Morkere were trying to gain help in throwing off the yoke of the 
new king from the king of Denmark. William organized an army 
and led it thither, building castles in Warwick, Nottingham, and 
York, and filling them with strong garrisons, as he had done the 



Jf 



98 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

year before in London and some of the western towns. As he 
marched northward he received the submission of the earls and 
of many other influential Englishmen without fighting. On his 
way back and later he located and ordered the building of castles 
in a number of other towns. Within the next year or two there 
were again risings of the English under native leaders in the north 
and northwest. These were put down by William in person. 
He brought an army with him and occupied York and other 
towns, built castles, and harried the surrounding country without 
^X mercy. He then 

/^^^ 3 crossed the moors 

to Chester and 
crushed out with 
a heavy hand the 
independence 

Norwich Castle, which that cit y 
built by William had sought to 
the Conqueror maintain. 

The last resist- 
ance was made in the marshy country of the east of England, 
where a party of English outlaws under a leader named Hereward 
held out against the government of William till late in the year 
107 1, when they were defeated and captured. England was at 
last completely conquered. Through every part of the country 
William had ridden with his army. There was scarcely a shire in 
England in which he had not appeared as conqueror or master. 
There had been no show of rebellion which had not been over- 
come and no resistance which had not been punished. 

79. Summary of the Period of Conquest The conquest of 

England by Cnut in 1016 was not relatively very important, as 
it brought little that was Danish or new into England. Cnut 
ruled England purely as a native king, appointing Englishmen to 
the most influential positions and drawing his laws from the ear- 
lier Anglo-Saxon codes. Except in name and in the method by 




DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS 99 




Campaigns of William the Conqueror. (The lines indicate his military 
journeys through the country. The places marked O indicate 
the towns where he had castles erected.) 



100 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

which he obtained the crown he might have been an ordinary 
successor of the West Saxon line of kings. 

On the other hand, the Norman Conquest had an importance 
which it is almost impossible to overestimate. It opened a new 
era for England and gave to its history a direction and character 
far different from that which it would have had except for this 
conquest. This permanent effect was due to at least three causes. 
In the first place, the conquest came at a critical period not only 
in the history of England but of other European countries. The 
large countries or nations were at this time breaking up into small 
separate provinces under half-independent earls, counts, dukes, 
or other great nobles. This tendency had been quite as well 
marked in England as on the continent. But the victory of 
William the " Conqueror," as he is called, introduced a strong, 
centralized, orderly government which reversed this tendency to 
subdivision as far as England was concerned. The result was 
that England for the next four or five centuries had a stronger 
government than any other country of Europe. In the second 
place, the conquest was made by a race of people who had a 
genius for government and political organization. The dukes of 
Normandy, who now became kings of England, and the Norman 
nobles who held the highest positions in England under them, 
were a vigorous and gifted if brutal and cruel race of men. They 
organized a system of taxation, developed the law and law courts, 
kept records, and introduced other improvements in government 
far more rapidly than the Anglo-Saxons had shown any signs of 
doing. In the third place, the conquest was important because 
it brought England into closer contact with a part of the continent 
where trade, the development of town life, building, and inter- 
course with other parts of Europe were going on with the greatest 
activity. England was detached from the sluggish north of Europe 
and united with the more active and civilized center and south. 
The Norman Conquest occurring when and as it did was without 
doubt the most important single event in the history of England, 



DANISH AND NORMAN CONQUESTS IOI 

General Reading. — The great work on this period is Freeman, E. A., 
The Norman Conquest, 6 vols., of which the first three refer to the time of 
this chapter. This work is, however, expensive, long, and difficult to read. 
The same author has a valuable Short History of the Norman Conquest. 
Green, Conquest of England, chaps, viii-xi, is midway in length between these 
two and very satisfactory ; while the same author's Short History, chap, ii, 
sects. 1-5, is particularly good. Ramsay, Foundations of England, Vol. I, 
chaps, xxiii-xxx, and Vol. II, chaps, i-vii, is the most recent study of the 
period. Freeman, William the Conqueror (Twelve English Statesmen), 
chaps, i-viii, deals with the history of William till the conquest of England 
was complete. 

Contemporary Sources. — The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle continues through 
this period, the entries for the years 991, 994, 999, 1002, 1009-1011, 1014- 
1017, 1066, and 1067 being of special interest. William of Malmesbury and 
Florence of Worcester are almost contemporary chroniclers whose books 
are translated and published in the Bohn Library. The Bayeux Tapestry 
is worth close study for costumes and some of the events of the Conquest. 
Parts of it are reproduced in many places, and the whole of it as an atlas 
accompanying Thierry, History of the Norman Conquest, which is other- 
wise a work of but little value. A number of extracts concerning Cnut, 
and one of special interest describing the battle of Hastings, are given in 
Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 40-44; others in Colby, Nos. 10-12; and still 
others in Kendall, including Cnut's Letter from Rome, No. 12, and a 
contemporary description of the Normans from William of Malmesbury, 
No. 14. Selections from the chronicles will be found in Cheyney, Readings, 
Nos. 48-55. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Thackeray, Ballad of King Canute, gives the 
familiar story of his rebuke to his courtiers. Tennyson, Harold (a drama). 
Bulwer-Lytton, Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings, and Kingsley, 
Hereward, are two stories of the period of the Conquest which, although 
including much imaginary detail, are probably correct in their main outlines. 

Special Topics. — (1) Danegeld, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for the 
years 991, 994, 1002, 1007, 1014; (2) the Origin of Normandy, Green, 
Short History, chap, ii, sects. 3, 4; (3) the Battle of Hastings, Traill, 
Social England, Vol. I, pp. 299, 300 ; (4) the Revolt in the Fen-Country, 
Kingsley, Hereward ; (5) Coronation of William the Conqueror, Anglo- 
Saxon Chronicle for the year 1066; (6) Journeys of Cnut, Ramsay, Vol. I, 
chap. xxiv. 




CHAPTER VII 
ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS. 1066-1154 

80. The Norman Aristocracy. — The Norman Conquest con- 
sisted not only in driving one king from the English throne and 
putting another in his place, but in placing the Norman com- 
panions and followers of William in all positions of influence in 
England. This process had begun to a slight extent, as already 
pointed out, even during the time of Edward the Confessor. 
Now, step by step, as William completed the military conquest of 
the country, he left a few Normans established in each locality, 
endowed with lands and intrusted with many of the duties and 
powers of government. The rights and powers as landlords pos- 
sessed by the Saxon king, earls, and thegns who had fought 
against William either at the battle of Hastings or in the later 
contests were forfeited to him. These he distributed among his 
followers. The ordinary peasants living upon the estates, who 
were the actual occupants of the land, were but seldom disturbed, 
and continued to pay their rents and services to the new land- 
lords instead of to the old. 

The confiscated estates were in some cases retained by the king, 
in others given, and with no niggard hand, to those who had helped 
him in his adventure. To his brother Robert of Mortain he gave 
altogether 793 manors ■ to his other brother, Odo, 439 ; to Alan 
of Brittany, 442 ; and to others, smaller numbers, down even to 
single manors. These grants to the influential Norman leaders 
were no doubt made at different times, as the possessions of the 
Saxons were confiscated. The result was that no great noble's 
property was all in any one place. He possessed one manor or 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 103 

group of manors here, another there, in various parts of the 
country, as the dispossessed Saxons happened to have held them ; 
though frequently, of course, with a preponderance of his posses- 
sions in some one shire. 1 In this way Norman landed families 
were established all over England, some almost rivaling the king 
himself in their power and income, though others were of course 
of much less power and wealth, down to the mere holder of a 
single manor. There were even Norman knights or esquires little 
above common soldiers or farmers who were settled down on a 
little holding of land granted to them by some larger landholder 
or by the king. 

81. Military Services. — These estates were granted to their 
new lords not in full ownership but on condition of performing 
military service and certain other duties to the king. Each land- 
holder was required to provide a certain number of soldiers, 
roughly proportioned to the extent of the estate. This perform- 
ance of military service in return for a grant of land furnished the 
basis for what is known as " feudalism" or " feudal tenure." As a 
custom it was already quite common in England. In Normandy 
it was still more widespread and well understood. The sudden con- 
fiscation and regrant of such a large part of the land of England 
within a few years gave to the Normans an opportunity for intro- 
ducing feudal tenure in even greater completeness than on the 
continent. The group of customs which made up feudalism will 
be discussed more fully later in this chapter, when the time is 
reached at which it attained its full development. 

The greatest of William's followers, several of whom were 
related by blood or marriage to the king, were given the old 

1 This scattering of the landed possessions of each lord is often thought 
to have been deliberately arranged by William so that a noble should not 
obtain too much strength by having all his tenants together. There is no 
contemporary testimony to show what his intention was, but the scatter- 
ing is much more likely to have been merely the natural result of the confis- 
cations and regrants than of such an ingenious policy on William's part. 



104 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

English title of earl, corresponding to the title of count in the 
continental countries. He gave the title very sparingly, however, 
bestowing it altogether on but twelve of his barons. 1 Their pow- 
ers were, moreover, by no means those of viceroys, like the earls 
of Saxon times. Such powers and privileges as they possessed 
were restricted to some one shire, and seldom amounted to more 
than the right to collect certain payments and the power they 
naturally possessed as lords of many estates and many tenants. 

William also appointed Normans to serve as sheriffs of the 
shires, or counties, as the shires came now to be called, as consta- 
bles of his new castles, and as officials of still lower rank, endow- 
ing these likewise with lands obtained by confiscation. Altogether 
forty or fifty great barons were given high titles or offices and 
extensive estates in England. Several hundred more, mostly 
bearers of names drawn from places in Normandy or other parts 
of France, were given lesser appointments and grants of land 
from the king, and many other Normans held lands granted to 
them by their more powerful fellow countrymen. 

Thus, within a very few years after the battle which gave 
William the throne, Norman earls, sheriffs, barons, and knights 
had superseded Saxon earls, sheriffs, and thegns in official posi- 
tions and as landholders, while the upper classes of the Saxons 
had been killed or driven into banishment, or had fallen into the 
less distinguished classes of the community. 

82. Bishops and Abbots. — The same thing happened in the 
church, except that the change was made more gradually. As the 
Saxon bishops and abbots died, or in some cases as they were for 
various causes deposed, Normans were appointed in their places. 
All influence in the church was then exercised by these Norman 
prelates. A priest of the cathedral of Bayeux, for instance, was 

1 The most prominent of these were his brothers Odo and Robert, 
made earls of Kent and Cornwall ; William Fitz Osbem, earl of Hereford ; 
Henry de Beaumont, earl of Warwick; Roger of Montgomery, earl of 
Shrewsbury; and Walter Giffard, earl of. Buckingham. 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



IOS 



made archbishop of York soon after the Conquest ; then an abbot 
of Caen was made archbishop of Canterbury, and the chaplains of 
the king who had come with him or afterwards followed him from 
Normandy were rapidly promoted to bishoprics and abbacies. 

The Norman bishops soon transferred the seats of their bishop- 
rics from the small towns or country places where their prede- 
cessors had been established to the largest town in each diocese, 
and there began the erection of the large churches which later 




tflljii 







Canterbury Cathedral as it was completed long after the Conquest 



grew into the splendid cathedrals which still give to England 
much of its dignity and beauty. The newly appointed Norman 
abbots were just as ambitious to extend the number and grandeur 
of their abbey buildings. The bishoprics and abbeys were in 
general allowed by William to retain their lands on condition of 
acknowledging that they held them from him and owed him service 
for them. He also founded and enriched with extensive lands, 
in fulfillment of a vow he had made on the battlefield of Hastings, 
an abbey which was erected on the spot where that battle was 
fought, and which was always afterwards known as Battle Abbey. 



106 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

83. The Common People. — As has been said, many Normans 
of lower rank came to England in the wake of the Conquest, 
though there is no means of knowing how many. Normandy 
was a very populous country, and many came to England to 
improve their fortunes now that their own duke was king there. 
They came especially to live in the towns and to engage in trade 
and handicrafts. Thus, notwithstanding the plundering of the 
towns by William and his soldiers in the early days of the Con- 
quest, and notwithstanding the destruction of houses to make 
room for the castles, the Norman connection soon led to an 
increase in the activity, population, and wealth of the towns. 

Marriages very soon took place between Normans and English, 
so that the two races began to blend almost from the beginning. 
For a long time, however, the upper classes were more largely 
Normans, the peasantry in the country purely English. 

84. The Norman French Language. — Another effect of the Nor- 
man Conquest had been to introduce a third language into England. 
The conquerors had spoken in Normandy a form of French, and 
this therefore became in England the language of the king and 
his court, of the nobility, of government officials, and in all proba- 
bility of the greater number of the traders in the towns. Latin 
was still used in the services and in most of the business of the 
church, and in almost all written documents. English was used 
by the great mass of the people, and in lawsuits in which English- 
men were concerned or old English laws and charters quoted. 
King William himself is said to have tried to learn English in 
order that he might understand the testimony given at the law- 
suits of his English subjects. No doubt songs were still composed 
and sung in the language of the people, and there were no signs 
of English being abandoned by those who were born to its use. 
Yet the concurrent use of the two languages led to many changes 
in the old English, and when it came into literary use again, at 
a later time, the endings of its words had been lost, a vast num- 
ber of new words introduced, and it was almost a new language. 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 107 

85. Reign of William I. — William was king of England for 
twenty-one years, from his coronation in 1066 to his death in 
1087. The first few years of his reign were occupied largely with 
the completion of the Conquest by putting down the risings in 
different parts of England. He also made an expedition into 
the south of Scotland, forcing Malcolm, the Scottish king, who 
had made several raids into Northumbria since the battle of 
Hastings, to swear allegiance to him. Later William also invaded 
Wales, and thus obtained the same nominal control over the whole 
island that his Anglo-Saxon predecessors had claimed. He 
retained his dukedom of Normandy and visited it repeatedly, 
settling its internal affairs and carrying on conflicts with the 
counts of the provinces adjacent to it. 

86. William and the Papacy. — A question of some difficulty 
arose in regard to William's relation to the pope. The encourage- 
ment granted by the pope to the original project of invasion of 
England by William was of so great value in obtaining volunteers 
for that expedition as to put William under obligations to the 
head of the church. His religious feelings and habits tended the 
same way, and he had no wish to keep the English church as far 
separate from Rome as it had been. On the other hand, a short 
time after the Conquest a new pope was elected who held such 
high views of the authority of his office as to bring him into 
conflict with all the temporal sovereigns of Europe, no matter 
how pious or devoted to the papacy they might be. This pope 
was Hildebrand, or Gregory VII, as he was now called. 1 He 
had been an influential Roman church official for many years 
before his election, and now determined to introduce much- 
needed reforms into the church throughout Europe. In order 
to do so he asserted the supremacy of the pope not only over 

1 When a new pope is elected he chooses any name he wishes. Since 
there are certain names much used, — as Gregory, Clement, John, Pius, 
Leo, and Urban, — a numeral has generally to be added to distinguish him 
from predecessors who have taken the same name. 



ioS A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

all clergymen but even over all kings and nobles of the various 
countries, intending, however, to apply this supremacy only in 
church matters. As part of this policy, he summoned William 
to take an oath of submission and faithfulness to him. This Wil- 
liam declined to do, on the grounds that he had never made 
such a promise and that the earlier English kings had not done 
so. Gregory accepted this refusal at the time and also postponed 
several of his other proposed measures, so far as England was 
concerned. William also laid down the rules that no pope should 
be recognized by Englishmen except by the king's authority, 
that no papal bull should be published in England until it had 
been inspected by the king, that no royal officials should be 
excommunicated except with his sanction, and that no church 
councils were to be held or canons * enacted in England without 
his consent. These statutes were not so much directed against 
the authority of the pope as they were against the claims which 
English churchmen might make to act independently of the king. 
They do not, however, seem to have created any antagonism with 
Lanfranc, the king's friend, who as archbishop of Canterbury was 
exercising a beneficial rule over the church in England. 

87. Preservation of Old Customs. — When William based his 
refusal to swear allegiance to the pope on the absence of such a 
custom among his Anglo-Saxon predecessors he was following his 
usual policy of laying stress on his position as a legally chosen 
English king. He maintained that Harold was a usurper, but 
for Edward the Confessor and the kings, who preceded him he 
expressed the greatest respect. He retained most of the old Eng- 
lish customs of government. He called the nobles and churchmen 
together to great councils, just as the Anglo-Saxon kings had 
held their witenagemots. Indeed, he held such councils more reg- 
ularly and formally than they had ever been held before. When 
he was not abroad he made a practice of summoning the great- 
men of the country to a council three times a year, — at Easter, 

1 A canon is a law of the church adopted at a church council. 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 109 

Whitsuntide, and Christmas ; that is to say, in the spring, early 
summer, and midwinter. At these times he had his crown placed 
on his head, and there was much ceremony, feasting, and display. 
These were also occasions for the discussion of important points 
of policy, making appointments and grants, and announcing the 
king's decisions and intentions. These councils were summoned 
more frequently at Winchester, London, and Gloucester, all in 
the south, than at any other places, though once at least the king 
kept his Christmas feast and council at York, in the far north. 
He kept up the shire and hundred motes, or county and hundred 
courts, as they were now called. He retained also the Danegeld, 
which could easily be collected for other purposes than to buy 
off or drive off the Danes. Like the more enlightened of his 
predecessors, he also issued, early in his reign, a code of laws 
based on those of earlier kings, with comparatively few additions 
or changes. 

88. New Customs. — On the other hand, William introduced 
much that was new. He made the " forest laws," which were 
severe regulations against hunting game in the king's forests by 
any others than the king and his nobles. He extended the limits 
of an old forest region in Hampshire near Winchester by adding 
to it all the pieces of woodland in the neighborhood and even 
driving out the population of a number of villages. He then 
placed the whole district under the control of special forest 
officers and the forest laws. This tract was known as the " New 
Forest," * and was the first and largest of a number of such 
royal hunting preserves afforested by the king's successors. 
Forests, in this use of the word, were not always regions covered 
with trees, nor were they necessarily without a population. They 
were simply districts where the ordinary laws did not apply and 
where many special laws were in force, directed to the preservation 
of the game. The cruelty with which William drove the unof- 
fending peasantry from their homes for this purpose in a time of 

1 See map on p. 9. 



no 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 




entire peace, and the harshness of the forest laws which he 
introduced, left upon his own and later times an impression of 
his tyranny and hardness which the far more terrible ravaging 
during the years of the actual Conquest does not seem to have 
produced. Hunting was a passion with William, and a chronicler 
who lived at his court said of him : " He made large forests for 
the deer and enacted laws that whoever killed a hare or a hind 
therein should be blinded. As he forbade killing the deer so also 

the boars. He loved 
the tall stags as if he 
were their father. He 
also appointed con- 
cerning the hares, that 
they should go free." 
William also intro- 
duced into England 
the " curfew " x law. 
This was a require- 
ment that all fires 
should be put out or covered at nightfall. It was a regulation in 
existence at that time in several European countries, intended 
to prevent accidental conflagrations. It had never before been 
introduced into England, probably because towns with their 
great liability to fires were not numerous there, and being a new 
custom was felt by the English to be an exercise of tyranny. 

In the law courts an additional method of proof, besides the 
oath and the ordeal, was introduced by the Normans. This was 
the " wager of battle." If one man charged another with an offense 
or a wrong done to him and the latter denied it, the court might 
declare that the truth or falsity of the charge should be decided 
by a judicial battle. At an appointed time, after each contestant 
had sworn to the truth of his statement* a contest under regular 
forms with short battle-axes or hammers of an established shape 

1 Curfew is an English pronunciation of the French couvre-feu, " cover fire." 



Trial by Wager of Battle (from a manuscript 
of the thirteenth century) 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS in 

took place, the one who was first compelled to acknowledge defeat 
losing his case. This also had long been familiar on the conti- 
nent, but was previously unknown in England. 

89. Domesday Book. — Just at the close of his reign William 
after consultation with his nobles sent out groups of officials to 
the various parts of the country to obtain by sworn statements of 
the inhabitants fuller knowledge of who the landholders of the 
country were, how many tenants of various classes they had, how 
much tax they paid when a Danegeld was collected, and what the 
real value of each estate was. The officials who served as com- 
missioners passed from hundred to hundred in each shire, calling 
some of the inhabitants from each township before them and 
requiring them to give answers on these and other points. A 
vast mass of detailed information was obtained by this census. 
It was sent to Winchester and there gone over, rearranged, and 
copied by the king's clerks. The result was two thick manuscript 
volumes, which still exist just as they were written at that time. 
They have always been known as Domesday Book. The work 
gives us a fuller and more detailed knowledge of England at the 
time of the Norman Conquest than we have of any other mediaeval 
country, although the real meaning of many of its statements is 
obscure and is only being gradually learned by much study. 

The power to compel the people of all England to give this 
information shows how great the authority of William was. Even 
in modern times, when the power of the government is practically 
irresistible, people often decline, delay, or hesitate to give census 
information. In the eleventh century probably no other ruler in 
Europe had sufficient power to collect detailed reports of this 
nature from his whole kingdom. The. ability to put these reports 
into such good shape also indicates the organization of a quite 
efficient body of government clerks and other officials. 

90. Position and Character of William. — However much William 
may have insisted that he was simply one of the legitimate line 
of English kings, his position was very different from theirs and 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

vastly more powerful. He had in reality a threefold basis for his 
authority as king : he was in the first place the elected, anointed, 
and crowned king of the English nation ; secondly, he was the 
military conqueror of England; lastly, he was the feudal over- 
lord of the country, with a certain degree of proprietorship of all 
the landed estates of England. Although he had given a large 
part of the confiscated lands to his Norman barons and knights, 
yet he had given these only on condition of faithfulness, military 
service, and money payments to himself. Because of these ele- 
ments of power he was in a position to carry on a government 
vigorous, firm, assertive, and even despotic, far beyond anything 
before known in England, and to exercise an enduring influence 
on the destinies of his people. This power is well shown by what 
has been called the " Salisbury Oath." In 1086, at the very close 
of his career, William appointed a great mote or council at Salis- 
bury, to which all landholders were summoned. There he made 
all take an oath of fidelity to him which was to take precedence 
of any other duty they owed to any lords who might be between 
them and the king. 

No satisfactory picture of the Conqueror remains, but there 
are several descriptions of him by men who knew him well. He 
was a man of good stature and figure, though he became very 
stout in his later years. He was slightly bald on the forehead. His 
expression was usually stern, as might be expected from his char- 
acter and experiences ; and he gave w r ay to terrible outbursts of 
anger in which he roared out his favorite oath, " By the splendor 
of God," to the dismay of all who heard him. On the other 
hand, he could be courteous and kindly in manner. He was 
religious in his habits, attending mass every day. His ability, 
his energy, his directness of decision and action, and his invincible 
determination are better seen in what he did than in anything 
that can be said of him. 

At the time of his death he had three sons and a daughter. On 
his deathbed he expressed a wish that the following arrangement 



VII 



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A Page of Domesday Book 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 113 

of inheritances should be made for them. His eldest son, Robert, 



should be duke of Normandy ; the next son, William, king of 
England ; and the third, Henry, a mere boy, should be given a 
certain sum of money. His daughter, Adela, was already married 
to Stephen, count of Blois, a French province. 1 

91. William II and his Contest with the Barons. — William II, 
who became king at his father's death in 1087, had a stormy 
reign of thirteen years. He was killed by an accident while still 
only forty years of age. He was called William " Rufus," probably 
because he was red-faced. 2 He had the energy, the harshness, 
and much of the ability of his father, but he had neither the 
clearness of aim nor the sense of duty which had made his father's 
policy so successful. 

Two contests filled much of his reign, — one with the great 
Norman barons, the other with the church. The great nobles 
who had gained as a result of the Conquest such extensive landed 
estates in England in many cases still retained their estates in 
Normandy. They were so powerful, because of the income they 
received and of the number of men who must obey their sum- 
mons to follow them in war, that they were almost independent 
princes. It was hard for such men to submit to the strict rule 
of the king, to respect his officials, pay his taxes, and abide by 
his laws. The hand of the Conqueror had been heavy enough to 
keep them in obedience ; but his successor seemed more like 
one of themselves, and they were not willing to submit to him 
without a struggle. A group of them therefore entered into a 

1 The Norman line of kings with their genealogy was as follows : 
William I, 1066-1087 



Robert, duke of Normandy William II Henry I Adela 

died 1 135 1087-1100 1100-1135 

I * I Stephen 

William Matilda 1135-1154 

died 1 1 28 died 1167 



2 The Latin word rufus means reddish. 

RE 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

conspiracy to drive William Rums from the throne and to place 
on it his brother Robert, duke of Normandy, who was of an easy- 
going disposition, and would not be likely to rule very strictly 
those to whom he owed his throne. Immediately after the 
Conqueror's death, therefore, the rebellious nobles drove the king's 
men out of the royal castles in a number of towns, introduced 
garrisons and supplies into these castles and their own fortified 
houses, and began ravaging the surrounding country. Several of 
the earls and many of the lesser barons, on the other hand, took 
the part of the king. 

William's most valuable support, however, came from another 
quarter. He called a great gathering at London to which men 
of English birth of the well-to-do classes were specially invited. 
He promised to give them reduced taxes, freer hunting rights, 
and a better administration of the law, and called upon them to 
join him in putting down the rebellious barons. He also sum- 
moned the old fyrd of the southeastern counties. The English 
willingly joined the king in opposition to the Norman aristocracy, 
and in a short time an effective army was created. Rufus was 
thus able to defeat the disobedient nobles and force them to 
acknowledge him. A few years later, in 1095, he had an equally 
hard and successful struggle with a group of the great barons who 
asserted practical independence and would have dethroned him 
to obtain it if they could have accomplished it. 

William was loath to accept the arrangement of his father by 
which his brother Robert was given the duchy of Normandy. 
He was ambitious to possess all the dominions which his father 
had ruled. Through his whole reign, therefore, whenever he was 
not himself being troubled by the disobedience of the barons, he 
was either intriguing or fighting to get Normandy and the other 
continental dominions of the Norman house into his hands. One 
by one he got control of fortified places and their dependent 
districts and hemmed in the immediate dominions of Robert. 
Finally Robert went on a crusade to the Holy Land, leaving the 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



"5 



government of the whole duchy in the hands of William in return 
for money with which to equip his expedition. William got the 
money by laying a heavy Danegeld on the English. 

92. Lanfranc. — Unlike his father, William Rufus was not a 
religious man. Indeed, although it was an age when almost every 
one expressed and probably even felt great reverence for all reli- 
gious things, William ridiculed such matters. When some one 
declared that an event was the will of God he laughed aloud; 
when it was proposed to pray 
to the saints for aid he for- 
bade it ; and when the ordeal 
once indicated certain men 
to be innocent whom he be- 
lieved guilty he broke out in 
anger and shouted, " Who 
says that God is just? " He 
told the Jews, who had begun 
to settle in England since the 
Conquest, that he was quite 
open to conviction of the 
truth of their religion if they 
could refute the bishops in 
an open debate before him. 
When some Jews of Rouen 
went over to Christianity he 
agreed for a price offered by their friends to force them to go 
back to Judaism. With such views it is no wonder that the con- 
flicts on church matters that could not be avoided even between 
pious kings and churchmen should have broken out with special 
bitterness under William Rufus. 

When he became king the archbishop of Canterbury, who had 
been his father's right-hand man during most of his reign, was still 
living. This was Lanfranc. He was by birth an Italian, a native of 
the city of Pavia, and educated there as a lawyer. From Italy he 




Chapel in White Tower 



Il6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

emigrated or perhaps was exiled to Normandy. Here he became 
famous as a teacher and man of learning, and under pressure of 
religious influences became a monk. When he was made prior 
of the Abbey of Bee he became still more famous ; many men of 
religion sought that monastery and students came to study under 
him. William while still only duke of Normandy came to know 
him and sent him two or three times on embassies to Rome and 
elsewhere. After the Conquest, when the archbishopric of Can- 
terbury became vacant through the deposition of its last Saxon 
incumbent, Lanfranc was induced somewhat reluctantly to accept 
that position. For many years he was the principal adviser of 
the king and the most influential man in England. There was 
much in his position and character similar to those of Dunstan a 
hundred years before, although the two men were far different in 
race, had very different kings to serve, and belonged to entirely 
different epochs. He was an extensive and learned writer, and 
his Latin letters are still read. 

In political matters Lanfranc showed good judgment ; he 
selected wisely those whom he advised the king to appoint to 
office, and exercised his own influence over the king in the 
direction of moderation and good sense. In religious affairs he 
insisted on the supremacy of the position of archbishop of Can- 
terbury over all other church positions in England, even over the 
archbishopric of York, and thus made the church organization 
more centralized. He held frequent councils, sometimes of the 
prelates of all England and sometimes of. those of his own arch- 
bishopric only. His superior gifts and training as an Italian and 
as a lawyer gave him wide influence not only over the king, the 
barons, and other churchmen, but over Welsh, Irish, and Scotch 
chieftains and bishops who sent to obtain his advice or decision 
on difficult questions. It was he who exercised the influence 
necessary to have the dwelling places of the bishops removed from 
the villages where they had been established in early times to a 
large town in each diocese. So long as Lanfranc lived, William II 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS li; 

was somewhat overawed by him and submitted to his influence. 
But his death occurred two years after that of the Conqueror and 
left the new king with no such restraint. 

93. Misgovernment of the Church by William. — When bishop- 
rics, abbacies, and other positions in the church became vacant 
by the death or promotion of their former holders it had been 
customary to fill them promptly with new appointees. In the 
meanwhile some one was appointed to receive the income of the 
office while it was vacant and to retain this for the new incum- 
bent. William Rufus now began the practice of keeping such 
positions vacant for months or even years and himself collecting 
and using the income. When Lanfranc died more than four years 
passed away before any one was appointed to the archbishopric 
of Canterbury, and other positions were treated in the same way. 
Even when appointments were made, the king had a habit of 
retaining some of the lands which belonged to the church, and 
he frequently gave offices to those churchmen who offered him 
payment for the appointment. 1 Morals were very bad throughout 
the country, but the king refused to stand by the church authori- 
ties in punishing immorality, and he himself set an example of 
flagrant wickedness. 

94. Anselm. — In these actions William met an outspoken 
opponent in the new archbishop of Canterbury. For he was 
finally scared by a sudden fit of sickness into making an appoint- 
ment to that position, and the popular voice forced Anselm, the 
abbot of Bee, upon him. Anselm was an Italian, like Lanfranc, 
and had been attracted by the fame of the latter to come to Bee 
in Normandy to study. He had become abbot after Lanfranc's 
departure. He was a man of studious habits, keen intellectual 
abilities, devout nature, and lovable character, and would have 

1 The appointment of ecclesiastics to church positions in return for a 
gift of money is known as the offense of simony, because Simon Magus 
had offered money to the apostles Peter and John in order that he might 
obtain supernatural powers like theirs. 



n8 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



much preferred to live the quiet life of a monastic scholar. The 
practical duties of abbot had, however, fallen to his lot, and he 
was now drawn into the still more active duties of archbishop of 
Canterbury. During several years he was engaged in a continual 
contest with the king, who on getting well from his sickness refused 
to complete the investiture of Anselm, held back part of the lands 
belonging to the archbishopric, insisted on a contribution toward 

the expense of his wars which would 
have compelled the archbishop to 
overtax his tenants, and recklessly 
cursed Anselm when he rebuked him 
for his sinful life. After several years 
of such conflict, Anselm gave up the 
struggle and went into voluntary exile 
on the continent, carrying nothing 
with him except his necessary cloth- 

IffifffliHBwIl IkW a * n ^ an< ^ ^ ie manuscr ipt °f a h a ^ 

finished Latin theological work, and 

hoping to be allowed by the pope to 

resign from his archbishopric and 

retire to his quiet scholar's life. 

95. Hatred of William Rufus. — 

The king gradually came to be very 

much hated by his subjects. His 

military abilities and energetic campaigns saved his crown and his 

dominions, but the heavy taxes and oppressions which they required 

made the people almost desperate. The government was carried 

on apparently for the one object of getting money for the king's 

uses. His servants and soldiers were allowed by him to seize 

whatever they wanted from the people without any attempt at 

restraint. His offenses against religion and the church angered 

many others, though, as all the contemporary historians were 

churchmen, no doubt they have given him a worse reputation in 

history than he might otherwise have had. 




Norman Arched Gateway and 
Tower, St. Edmundsbury, 
built either in the Reign of 
William I or of William II 



ENGLAND. UNDER THE NORMANS 119 

William's principal minister and adviser was, strange to say, a 
churchman, Ranulfor Ralph " Flambard," 1 one of the Conqueror's 
Norman chaplains. By his business ability, legal sharpness, and 
constant work he became practically head of the whole govern- 
ment under the king, and to him were attributed many of the 
oppressions which made William II so unpopular. Above all, 
it was he who made government a device for extorting money 
from everybody. Ralph was rewarded by the king by being made 
bishop of Durham. This position was practically a great earldom 
as well as one of the richest offices of the church, and had already 
lain vacant for three and a half years. 

One day in the summer of n 00 the king's body, with an arrow 
through the heart, was found in the New Forest, where he had 
been hunting. Who shot the arrow has always remained a mys- 
tery, though early tradition declared that he was accidentally 
killed by Walter Tirrel, an intimate friend and favorite courtier, 
who in his horror at what he had done took to flight, and died 
long afterwards on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The king's body 
was brought to Winchester on a cart by some foresters and 
gamekeepers and buried in the minster there without religious 
services. 

96. Henry I. — William's younger brother Henry was hunting 
with him in the forest when the death of the king occurred, while 
his older brother, Robert, was far away in Italy, slowly making his 
way home from the Holy Land. Henry was ambitious and ener- 
getic. He had been born in England during the reign of his 
father, and was now in the prime of early manhood, being but 
thirty-two years old. He had small difficulty therefore in indu- 
cing a number of the bishops and nobles to choose him king, not- 
withstanding the better claims of his older brother. 

The questionable character of Henry's right to the throne led 
him to make every effort to obtain popularity and thus strengthen 

1 Flambard means " The Torch," presumably so called because he 
consumed men's goods. 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

his position. Therefore, in addition to the traditional coronation 
oath which his brother and father and their predecessors had 
taken, he drew up a charter or series of promises of good gov- 
ernment, of which he had a copy made and sent to the sheriff 
of each county in England to be read in the shire court. 1 It 
includes a number of promises not to do certain things which 
were widely felt to be oppressive, and in it the king declared, " A 
firm peace in my whole kingdom I establish and require to be 
kept from henceforth. The law of King Edward I give to you 
again with those changes with which my father changed it by the 
counsel of his barons." The times before the Conquest were 
already coming to be looked back upon as a golden age, as the 
" good old times." Men forgot all the miserable confusion and 
barbarism of that period, and a promise of the law of Edward 
the Confessor was considered equivalent to a promise of good 
government. The charter also provided that the barons should 
give to their dependents the same good treatment which the king 
promised to the higher classes to whom it was directed, thus 
recognizing the right of the whole body of the people to be well 
governed. The king gave proof of the earnestness of his inten- 
tion to keep order by arresting Ranulf Flambard and punishing 
disorderly nobles. 

In other ways Henry sought popularity, especially with the 
English element among his subjects. He chose for his wife a 
lady descended from the old English royal line, Edith (Anglo- 
Saxon Eadgyth), who was renamed Matilda or Maud, her English 
name being unpronounceable by the French-speaking Normans. 
As a result of this union all the' rulers of England since Henry, 
with the single exception of Stephen, his immediate successor, 
have been descended not only from William the Conqueror 

1 This charter may be found translated in Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. I, No. 6, p. 5. The most important sections are 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 
and 13. It was the first written restriction upon the despotism of the king, 
and long afterwards became the foundation of Magna Carta. 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 121 

but from the kings of the old West Saxon line, running back to 
Cerdic, its founder. 1 

Henry's natural abilities also helped to make him popular or at 
least successful as a ruler. He was a well-educated man for his time 
and was therefore nicknamed " Beauclerc," or the fine scholar. 
He could probably read and write French, his native language, 
read and write some Latin, and understand English when it was 
spoken. He was always fond of books and generous to men 
of learning. Another name sometimes applied to him was the 
"Lion of Justice," because of the sternness and yet fairness with 
which he settled disputes and put down all disorders on the part 
of the barons or other lawless persons. He was as good a soldier 
as his brother William, though not so fond of fighting for its own 
sake, and he was much abler as a peaceful ruler. Thus Henry 
was able to make good his position as king, and reigned for 
thirty-five years. He also obtained Normandy, partly by nego- 
tiation, partly by conquest, from his brother Robert, whom he 
kept in captivity during the remainder of his life. 

1 This line of descent, with the omission of many intervening links, is 

as follows : 

1 Cerdic 

V Egbert 

•a Alfred 

a, Ethelred the Unready 

Edmund Ironside fEdward the Confessor 

I V 

Edward 

! "1 W 

Edgar iEtheling Margaret William the Conqueror 



Edith — — Henry I » 

Mak(& 



' HenryII ,<U 

^ Victoria V "\ 
Edward VII 






122 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

97. Conflict with the Church. — Notwithstanding Henry's abil- 
ities and success the same two conflicts which had filled so much 
of the reign of William Rufus confronted him in the early years 
of his reign, — a contest with the church authorities and a con- 
test with the great nobles. 

The particular form of trouble in church matters that had been 
prominent in his brother's time was readily settled. Henry did 
not keep church positions vacant in order to collect and use their 
income, but filled them promptly and with capable if somewhat 
worldly men. He restored the archbishop of Canterbury, allowed 
church councils to be held, and helped the clergy to put in force 
the rules for church discipline enacted at them. His own religious 
habits and feelings were also regular, and his treatment of church- 
men was respectful and pleasant. But other troubles soon arose. 

The powers of oversight of church matters exercised by the 
central government of the church at Rome were at this time, as 
has been said before, great and continually increasing. They 
had never been asserted in their fullness in England. When the 
Conqueror refused to take an oath of allegiance to the pope and 
laid down the further rule that no representative of the pope or 
official letter from the pope should be sent into England without 
his consent, those claims were quietly dropped for the time. The 
church quarrels of William Rufus had been on internal questions 
not affecting the pope. Many church customs therefore still 
existed in England different from those approved by the pope and 
the general church councils. While Anselm had been in exile at 
Rome during the latter part of William's reign he had become 
fully imbued with a belief in the authority of the pope to enforce 
general church regulations in England as in other countries ; and 
when on Henry's invitation he came back to fill his position 
as archbishop of Canterbury he came determined to carry out 
these rules. In many of them the archbishop received the support 
of the king. The observance of the vow of celibacy was now made 
more stringent. This vow was taken, of course, by all priests, but 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



123 



was not taken by those persons who, although granted certain cler- 
ical privileges, had never received ecclesiastical orders. More or 
less fully this stricter rule was now enforced throughout England. 
98. The Contest about Investiture. — One proposed change, 
however, brought Anselm and Henry into immediate conflict. 
This was in the matter of investitures. It had been customary 
in England for a bishop or abbot after his appointment to his 
bishopric or abbey to be " invested," as it was called, by the king, 
with a ring and a staff as emblems of his office. On the same 
occasion he did homage to the king. That is to say, he knelt 
before the king and took an oath to 
be faithful to him. This was followed 
by the consecration, a religious serv- 
ice in which the new bishop or abbot 
was inducted by the archbishop or 
some other bishops into the reli- 
gious functions of his position. The 
custom of investiture by the king 
before consecration no doubt arose 
from the fact that bishops and abbots 
were practically great noblemen, 
having extensive lands and powers, 
quite apart from their religious posi- 
tion. But in 1075 this custom of receiving investiture from kings 
or other princes and performing homage to them was forbidden 
by the pope, and Anselm consequently refused to pay homage to 
Henry, or to consecrate any bishops or abbots who had accepted 
investiture from him or done homage to him. Henry on the 
other hand refused to give up the old established custom of Eng- 
land in this respect and would not allow churchmen to be con- 
secrated without previous investiture and homage. This dispute 
lasted for several years and led to innumerable conferences, 
embassies to the pope, and efforts at settlement. But all were 
without success, and for a second time Anselm left England. 




Investiture of an Abbot (from 
a manuscript of the thir- 
teenth century) 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

As a .matter of fact a bishop's or abbot's position was twofold. 
From one point of view he was an officer of the church, and it 
seemed natural that his appointment should be entirely a church 
matter. From another point of view he was a landholding noble, 
with vassals who must fight when summoned, and the king 
might fairly claim the right to insist on his taking an oath of faith- 
fulness to him. Henry's moderation and reasonableness, and 
Ahselm's goodness, notwithstanding his obstinacy, kept the quar- 
rel from becoming as bitter as it might have been. Finally, 
in 1 1 06, with the concurrence of the pope, a compromise was 
agreed to. All those who had already received investiture from 
the king should be consecrated to their offices by the arch- 
bishop. For the future the king gave up investiture, but retained 
homage. He acknowledged that investiture with ring and staff 
was the conveyance of a spiritual office and left it to the church 
authorities. On the other hand, the temporal rights of the king 
were acknowledged, and each bishop or abbot chosen was to 
swear homage to the king before being consecrated. Henry thus 
obtained what was practically a victory, and, to the general satis- 
faction, Anselm returned to England. 

99. Contest with the Barons. — The great earls and barons, 
especially those with possessions both in England and Normandy, 
were no more ready to be orderly and submissive under Henry 
than they had been under William Rufus, and a rebellion soon 
broke out. The principal struggle was with Robert of Belleme, 
earl of Shrewsbury. This man possessed six castles and the broad 
lands dependent on them, on the borders of Wales and in the 
center and north of England. Two of his brothers who had 
joined with him also held extensive estates. He is said to have 
had thirty-four strongholds in his possession or under his direct 
influence in Normandy. Against this powerful nobleman and 
his confederates Henry waged two successful campaigns, in 1102 
and 1 106. In the first of these Robert's castles were besieged 
and captured, he himself banished from England, and his estates 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 125 

confiscated ; in the second, in Normandy, he and all his adherents 
in the duchy were defeated and he was placed in imprisonment 
for the remainder of his life. 

100. The Central Government. — But Henry's most effective 
method of keeping the strong and turbulent nobility in order 
was not by carrying on military campaigns against them but by 
strengthening the organization of the central government. He 
chose capable ministers and with their help made the government 
so strong and active that the barons were not able to resist it. 
They, like common men, had to pay taxes, keep the peace, and 
submit to the decisions of the courts, however much they might 
long for greater independence or chafe under such restrictions. 

The central government had been stronger and better organ- 
ized ever since the Conquest than it had been at any time in the 
Anglo-Saxon period, but its principal development was in the 
reign of Henry I. Great councils, the successors of the witena- 
gemots, were held more frequently, though their power as com- 
pared with that of the king was really less. In addition to the 
ceremonial meetings which were held more or less regularly on 
the three great festivals of the year, councils of the nobles and 
higher clergy were called from time to time when matters of 
importance were to be discussed, and the king made a show at 
least of taking their advice and obtaining their consent to his 
more important actions. 

101. The King's Ministers. — Several of the great nobles held 
hereditary offices of high honor. These were the marshal, stew- 
ard, constable, and chamberlain. These offices, however, were 
largely honorary, with few duties or powers. The actual work of 
government was done by a number of ministers or official* who 
were chosen by the king not from the great noble families but 
from the lower baronage, or else were churchmen of no especial 
rank or position. The most influential minister was the justiciar. 
He was the king's principal representative, looked after the king's 
interest in all ways, gave him advice, and acted as regent when 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the king was on his numerous trips to Normandy. Ranulf Flam- 
bard practically occupied such a position under William Rufus, 
though the name itself was not used. Under Henry a certain 
Roger, a native of Caen in Normandy, later rewarded by the king 
with the bishopric of Salisbury, rose through various degrees of 
power from a mere chaplain in the household to justiciar. He 
retained this position for many years, organized the government;, 
and appointed able men to its highest positions. 

The chancellor was the minister of the king who attended to 
the written work of the government. It was he who had charge 
of the king's seal and made out, or had made out by his clerks, 
all charters, grants of land, written summons to nobles, letters, 
and other documents. The king relied upon the chancellor for 
the knowledge of legal forms and for the preservation of official 
records. 

The treasurer had charge of the government funds, and kept 
account of receipts and disbursements of them. When all money 
consisted of silver coins which had frequently to be weighed and 
counted, sometimes transported in boxes and at other times stored 
in safety, the treasurer necessarily required a large corps of assist- 
ants. Besides these principal officials and their immediate sub- 
ordinates the king had in his employ other trained men who were 
known simply as ministers or justices, who performed various duties 
of government of a financial, judicial, or administrative kind. 

102. The Curia Regis. — The various ministers of the king not 
only had each his separate work but they. met from time to time 
to attend jointly to matters of importance which needed consul- 
tation and the united authority of all those who directly repre- 
sented the king. When the ministers met in this way they were 
usually known as the "curia regis." This body must not, however, 
be confused with the occasional meetings of the great nobles and 
churchmen already referred to, though some of the men might, of 
course, attend both, and even the same name, " king's council," 
is sometimes applied to both. Before the curia regis lawsuits 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 127 

between the barons were tried, and complaints against individual 
barons were brought by the king or in his name. There were 
also many suits about land or payments in which the king was 
interested. Sometimes, though rarely, the king himself sat with 
his ministers in the curia regis, took part in the discussions, and 
delivered the decisions. Gradually all the most important cases 
were taken out of the county and hundred courts to be settled in 
the curia regis. Thus it became more and more largely occupied 
with judicial matters and came to be more of a court in the mod- 
ern legal sense of the word, less of a mere meeting of the king's 
ministers. 

103. Justices on Circuit. — The ministers had to be with the 
king as much as possible, so they followed him in his more exten- 
sive journeys, and the meetings of the curia had to be held where 
he and his ministers happened to be. This caused great difficulty 
to suitors. Many lawsuits besides could only be satisfactorily 
tried in the neighborhood where the matters at issue were known 
about. To meet these two difficulties justices representing the 
whole curia regis were sent from time to time into different parts 
of England with authority to settle all suits. Their presence in 
that part of the country could be made use of to collect money, 
enforce military service, and in other ways carry out the rights 
and claims of the king. Gradually it became so customary to 
send royal justices through the country that regular circuits 
were established. 1 Thus the power of the central government, 
exercised through the king's ministers, was shown in every part 
of the country regularly and frequently and not merely when the 
king swept through with his fighting men on a military expedi- 
tion. The power of the government was respected accordingly. 

104. The Exchequer. — Two meetings of the king's ministers 
every year, one at Easter, the other at Michaelmas (September 29), 

1 These royal officials or judges were known as " justices in eyre." The 
custom of judges going on circuit has been customary in all English-speaking 
countries ever since. 



128 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

were of special importance and were distinguished clearly from 
the ordinary sitting of the curia regis. These meetings were 
known as the sittings of the " Exchequer." The ministers and their 
clerks gathered around a long table on which certain squares were 
marked for ease of calculation of accounts by means of coins or 
counters laid upon them. The table and the meeting around it 
were called the Exchequer from this similarity to a checkerboard. 
Before this court the sheriffs of the shires and the representatives 
of the great nobles had to present themselves one by one and 
give account of the taxes, dues, and fines which it was their duty 
to collect or to pay. All disputes were settled then and there, 
the chancellor, treasurer, and others deciding on the law as it 
applied to the cases that came up. The Exchequer was, there- 
fore, a law court as well as an accounting office. The payments 
and decisions were recorded on a wide strip of parchment which 
from its appearance when rolled up was known as the Pipe Roll, 
or Great Roll of the Pipe. The earliest of these account rolls 
which still exists is that which records the two meetings of the 
thirty-first year of Henry I, 1130-1131, all others of Henry's 
reign having been lost or destroyed. The condition of the 
account with each sheriff was shown by giving him one half of 
a tally, the other half of which was preserved until the next 
meeting of the Exchequer. 

By means of the meetings of the Exchequer not only was the 
king's revenue kept in order and collected in its full amount, 
but the sheriffs, who were usually knights, were kept to a strict 
accountability, and forced to recognize the power and superiority 
of the government. By means of the curia regis, the circuit 
judges, and the Exchequer, the power of government under 
Henry I became almost irresistible. 

105. The Succession. — The king's only son, William, was 
drowned in a shipwreck as he was crossing the Channel from 
Normandy in the "White Ship," with a number of his relatives 
and other nobles, leaving as Henry's only legitimate child a daughter 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 129 

named Matilda. Henry tried the experiment of obtaining for 
her the inheritance of the kingdom of England and the duchy of 
Normandy. No woman had ever ruled in either of these coun- 
tries. In those turbulent times it was impossible that she should 
actually carry on the warfare which was an essential part of the 
government, and the result would be that her husband, whoever 
he might be, would become practically the ruler. Nevertheless 
Henry induced or compelled the barons to take an oath of 
allegiance to Matilda as their future mistress and queen. 

She was married to Geoffrey, count of Anjou, one of the most 
powerful princes of France. This connection was a valuable one 
for the English royal family, as it united the two greatest French 
provinces in their possession ; but it was extremely unpopular with 
the barons of both Normandy and England, as they had been in 
frequent warfare with the count and the barons of Anjou, and 
looked upon them as natural enemies. All that could be done to 
insure the acceptance of Matilda as queen was done by Henry, 
but on his death in 1135 all the arrangements fell promptly to 
the ground, and for a short time no one was proclaimed ruler. 

106. King Stephen. — This condition of doubt was broken by 
the claim of Stephen, son of the count of Blois and of Adela, 
sister of King Henry. Stephen was the favorite nephew of 
Henry, but had never been mentioned as his successor. He 
was count of Mortagne and Boulogne, and held many estates in 
Normandy and England. His younger brother was bishop of 
Winchester. Soon after Henry's death Stephen sailed from the 
continent to England, appeared at London, and obtained the 
good will of the leading citizens there. He then went to Win- 
chester, got possession of the royal treasure, and obtained from 
a number of the higher clergy and nobility a somewhat reluctant 
consent to his coronation. He also obtained recognition in Nor- 
mandy. Like Henry, Stephen tried to increase his popularity 
and strengthen his position on the throne by issuing a charter of 
liberties which made the same promises as Henry had given. 



130 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Stephen's authority, however, proved to depend not on how 
much power he chose to keep and how much to grant, but on 
how much the barons would leave to him. The powerful earls 
and barons and the wealthy and influential bishops and abbots 
had only been kept in order, as has been seen, by the heavy 
hand, the constant activity, or the wise control of the Conqueror 
and his two sons. Stephen did not have the ability necessary 
for the task. He was handsome, good-natured, affectionate, and 
brave, but he was not a skillful general nor a wise ruler. He took 
everybody's advice, and he refused to punish severely those who 
rebelled against him and were captured. He was misled into 
quarreling with Roger of Salisbury, the old justiciar, and arrested 
him and two of his relatives who had been placed in the positions 
of chancellor and treasurer. He did not take any further decisive 
action against them, but their imprisonment broke up the admin- 
istration of the government, as it had been carried on under 
Henry, and its reorganization amid the confusion of the time 
proved to be impossible. The meetings of the Exchequer were 
held less regularly, the curia regis seldom gathered, and there 
were no regular circuits of the king's justices. The government 
dropped back to the weak condition of Saxon times. 

107. The Civil War. — Soon Matilda asserted her claim to 
Normandy and England. She came over to England, while her 
husband invaded Normandy in her name. Many of the barons 
took her side, others remained faithful to Stephen, and a civil 
war broke out which lasted for more than fifteen years. Earls, 
barons, and knights took first one side and then the other, hold- 
ing their castles for Matilda at one time and for Stephen at 
another, according as their interests or their feelings might dic- 
tate. In fact, the barons made use of the disputed claim to the 
throne to live in practical independence of any king. They for- 
tified their castles by permission of one or other of the contestants, 
or without permission. They led their armed knights and their 
tenants to take part on either side in the war or to fight against 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



131 



other nobles with whom they had private quarrels. They coined 
money and forced the people on their estates and in the towns 
under their control to accept it. They refused to acknowledge 
the king's court or the decisions of the county and hundred courts. 
They killed the king's game in defiance of the forest laws. 

In fact, instead of England being ruled by one government, 
there were hundreds of lords of higher or lower degree each 
acting as if he had no government above him whatsoever. This 
period is therefore often described as " the period of anarchy." 




w~ 



-..v •-■-•. '■' 



Castle Rising, one of the Baronial Castles fortified in Stephen's Time 

Men were brutal and cruel at best in those times. Blinding was 
a common punishment for political prisoners of high rank, and 
the cutting off of hands and feet for culprits of lower degree. 
Besiegers of a castle, when they had made its master or some 
member of his family prisoner, frequently kept him without 
food, and displayed him to the besieged daily before the walls, 
so that the sight of his increasing misery might lead those in the 
castle to surrender. There were frequent instances of churches 
filled with men, women, and children being burned down with 
all that were in them. 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

When the weakness of Stephen and the confusion of the civil 
war reduced the regular government to powerlessness, this ten- 
dency to reckless brutality and outrage became vastly worse. 
Every narrative which has come down from that time describes 
the killing, burning, and ravaging which were prevalent. The 
castles of the nobles were places of violence, where the ene- 
mies or helpless victims of the lords were tortured and held in 
imprisonment. There was no power in existence which could 
protect the weak from the strong. Every one, especially every 
noble, did that which was good in his own eyes. 

108. The Mediaeval Castle. — The power of the nobles to act 
with such independence when a weak king like Stephen was on 
the throne was due largely to the strength of the castles they 
occupied. It is true that the king alone was considered to have 
the right to build fortified places. But many of the king's castles 
were occupied in his name by individual nobles ; other nobles 
obtained the royal permission to fortify their houses ; and still 
others, especially during the reign of Stephen, built strongholds 
without permission or authority from any one. Thus several hun- 
dred castles of greater or less size and strength were scattered over 
England. The baron's castle, indeed, was the most conspicuous 
object of the middle ages. On the crest of some rugged hill was 
built a square or round tower with thick walls pierced by nar- 
row windows and doors. This was the keep or donjon, the place 
of greatest strength and last refuge in case of attack. Around it 
was a courtyard with various buildings, and around this a strong 
wall with towers and a protected gateway. Outside of the wall, 
if the place admitted of it, was a moat or wide ditch filled with 
water. This was crossed by a drawbridge, which could be opened 
or closed at will. The gateway also was protected by a portcullis 
or drop gate. 

In ordinary times this castle was occupied only by a small num- 
ber of persons, — the baron and his family and a few servants or 
dependents in various capacities. Or the castle might be one of 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



133 



several in the possession of a great noble, and only occasionally 
visited by him, at other times being occupied by some official with 
a group of his men. Many men were, however, bound to come 
to the service of the castle in case of need ; and in time of danger 
the people of the neighborhood crowded within its defenses. 

109. Feudal Land Tenure. — The baron who occupied such a 
castle drew his support and money income from landed estates. 
He did not, however, own these estates as a modern landowner 







Richmond Castle, Yorkshire 



does, but held them from some one above him, on certain con- 
ditions. The land which any man held from another was called 
his fief or, in Latin, his feudum. The custom of holding lands 
on certain special conditions instead of owning them outright, 
as in earlier and later times, is therefore known as "feudal land- 
holding," or "feudal land tenure." 

Most large fiefs and many smaller ones were held by barons, 
knights, bishops, or abbeys, directly from the king. Those who 
held their lands in this way directly from the king were called ten- 
ants in chief. But the fief of a great baron, monastery, or bishopric 
might consist of a score or even a hundred or more manors or 



134 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

small farming villages. Some of these manors were usually in 
the direct possession and occupancy of the tenant in chief, but 
others were held from him by knights or other tenants. These 
were in the same relation to him as he was to the king. They 
were therefore called subtenants. Below these subtenants were 
men who held lands from them, and so through successive stages 
of subtenancy. The person from whom a man held his land was 
called his lord. 

When a feudal tenant came into possession of his land either 
by inheritance or by a grant he had to swear fealty and do hom- 
age for it. " Fealty and homage " was a ceremony in which the 
tenant bent on his knees before his lord, placed his hands within 
the lord's, and promised to be his man, 1 to be faithful to him and 
dependent upon him, and to serve him in all proper ways for the 
fief which he received from him. By this ceremony he came to 
be the lord's vassal as well as his tenant, and a relation of per- 
sonal attachment and faithfulness was created between them. 

A vassal or tenant owed to his lord not only faithfulness but 
services and payments of a much more tangible character. He 
owed him military service in proportion to the amount of land he 
held from him. That is to say, he must himself serve his lord as 
a knight and bring with him a certain number of other fighting 
men according to the extent of his fief. The length of time 
and frequency of such military service were early restricted by 
well-understood custom to a period of forty days once in a year. 
The number of men he must bring was one for each knight's fee 
which he held. 2 

The vassal had also to help his lord by money payments at 
certain times when the latter had special need of money. Such 
payments were called aids. There were three occasions generally 

1 This was the origin of the term homage; from the Latin homo, a man. 

2 A knight's fee ox fief was the amount of land from which the service 
of one knight was required. It was not of an exact extent or value, but in 
later practice in England was estimated at six hundred acres. 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 135 

acknowledged as times when the lord had a right to collect an aid : 
(1) for the expenses of the ceremony when his eldest son was 
knighted, (2) for his eldest daughter's dowry when she was married, 
and (3) to pay his ransom in case he was captured in war. 

When a feudal vassal died, his lands did not go back to the 
lord, but went by inheritance to his eldest son, or, if he had no 
son, to all his daughters equally. The heir had, however, to pay 
to his lord a sum of money in recognition of the lord's superior 
claim on the land. This payment was known as relief. 

An heir who was a minor came under the guardianship of the 
lord from whom his lands were held, and the lands went into 
the possession of the lord until the heir became of age. The 
lord must, however, provide for his support and training. This 
right of the lord to the possession of lands during a minority is 
spoken of as the right of wardship. When the child who would 
inherit the land was a girl, the lord claimed the right to select a 
husband for her, and consequently to receive the money payment 
which the suitor was willing to pay for the hand and the estates 
of the heiress. This was called the right of marriage, and was 
sometimes extended to the widows and heirs as well as to the 
heiresses of vassals. 

There were two cases in which the lands of a tenant or vassal 
came back into the lord's possession. If a vassal violated his oath 
of fealty, he fa rfe ilea 7 his lands, and his lord might seize them ; and 
if he died without direct heirs his lands escheated to his lord. 1 

The relations between a vassal and his lord were not all one- 
sided. The lord also had his duties to his tenant. He not only 
guaranteed to his tenant the possession of his land, but gave him 
protection against violence and injustice, and afforded him assist- 
ance in all ways that he could. The essence of feudalism was 
a contract or agreement by which the lord and vassal each gave 
and received something. 

1 Examples of all these payments and services are given in Translations 
and Reprints, " Documents Illustrative of Feudalism," Vol. IV, No. 3. 



136 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

no. Feudal Personal Relations. — Landholding and personal 
relationship were thus closely combined. Fidelity and obedience 
were owed where military service and money payments were 
owed. Protection of the fatherless and the widow was incum- 
bent upon the landlord who received the profits of the wardship. 
However poorly these personal duties were carried out, each 
tenant of land was bound by them to his lord, and his lord was 
similarly bound to him. All men were held together, in ideal 
at least, by the double bonds of land tenure and personal union. 
Moreover, every man above the peasant was lord of some sub- 
tenant who held from him, as well as vassal of some lord from 
whom he held. Homage and fealty, military service, the payment 
of relief and aids, wardship and marriage, forfeiture and escheat, 
all alike existed between each lord and his tenant in the same 
way that they existed between the king and his tenants in chief. 
Feudal tenure and feudal services, therefore, held together all 
classes of society, not the highest only. 

in. Feudal Powers of Government. — Landholding during the 
middle ages not only brought with it these personal bonds between 
lord and tenant, but gave to the lord many powers of govern- 
ment over his tenants. The right to have soldiers under one is 
a governmental power. Yet every feudal lord could claim the 
military services of his tenants. Likewise authority to give deci- 
sions in legal cases and to punish offenses is a governmental 
power. Yet every lord could and did require his tenants to bring 
their disputes about land to him for settlement, and thus became 
their judge in civil cases. A large number of the tenants in 
chief of the king had also been given an hereditary right to hold 
courts over their tenants for criminal offenses. They were thus 
in possession of courts of justice to which all their tenants must 
appeal and submit. In times of confusion many lords coined 
money of their own standard which they required their tenants 
to accept. The right of lords to collect aids and other money 
dues amounted almost to a right of taxation. These powers of 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 137 

military levy, courts of justice, coinage and taxation, are powers 
that in modern times belong only to the government. Under medi- 
aeval conditions they were not possessed by the government alone, 
but were exercised by all feudal lords over their own tenants. 

The expressions "feudal," "feudalism," the " feudal system," are 
applied to the customs which have just been described. Feudal- 
ism was primarily one particular form of possession of land. But 
the possession of land was such an important matter in the mid- 
dle ages that many other customs depended on and took their 
character from it. So we have seen that many of the personal 
interests of men and even the powers of government were in- 
cluded in feudalism. Long before the middle of the twelfth cen- 
tury it had placed its impress upon all the conditions of life. 

112. Feudalism in the Saxon Period. — These feudal conditions 
came into existence only gradually, and to trace their growth in 
England it is necessary to go back over two centuries of history. 
There were few traces of feudalism in the middle of the tenth 
century, as will be gathered from the description of Anglo-Saxon 
society as it was at that time. 1 In the later Anglo-Saxon period, 
however, it became customary for the king to give a right to hold 
courts to the earls, thegns, or church bodies to whom he gave 
lands. This was the germ of the feudal power of jurisdiction 
over tenants. Large landowners also at about the same time 
began the custom of granting out lands to tenants not for a mere 
money rent but on more varied and personal conditions. This 
was the beginning of feudal land tenure. During the century 
before the Norman Conquest it became customary for men to 
coimnend themselves, as it was called, to more powerful men ; 
that is, to take an oath of faithfulness and service in return for 
protection and patronage. Commendation was the origin of feudal 
homage and fealty. Men no doubt often received grants of land 
on commending themselves, or agreed to hold the land which 
they already possessed in dependence on the lord to whom they 

1 See chap. v. 



138 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

had commended themselves. Thus the most characteristic feudal 
customs were evidently already coming into existence among the 
native English before the Normans came among them. Never- 
theless these changes were slow and partial during the Saxon 
period. Fiefs doubtless existed, much like those of later times, 
but they were not universal and the conditions on which they 
were held were not yet settled. 

113. Effect of the Conquest on English Feudalism. — When the 
Norman Conquest occurred, however, feudalism rapidly became 
more general. It was already the only familiar way of holding 
land in Normandy, and William's confiscations in England gave 
him an opportunity to require feudal service from all the forfeited 
land when he granted it out again to his Norman followers. 
All the feudal payments and services were not, of course, imme- 
diately established. These were settled gradually, no doubt 
largely by the influence of the regular meetings and policy of the 
Exchequer, during the reign of the later kings of the Norman line. 
But military service in proportion to the number of knights' fees 
held, -which was the most fundamental feudal requirement, seems 
to have been universally required by William himself. 

114. Peculiarities of Feudalism in England. — The Conqueror 
introduced one great principle which made feudalism in England 
very different from what it was in other European countries. In 
other countries a man's allegiance was satisfactorily fulfilled by 
giving it under all circumstances to his immediate lord. In Eng- 
land William's law required that loyalty to the king should take 
precedence of all other allegiance, even of a man's fealty to his 
feudal lord. At the ceremony of the Salisbury oath, imposed 
by William in the last year of his reign, in the words of the old 
chronicle, " All the land-holding men of all England, whosesoever 
men they were, knelt to him and became his men, and swore 
solemn oaths to him that they would be faithful to him before all 
other men." Nevertheless this ideal was but poorly carried out. 
When the great barons rose in rebellion their tenants marched 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 139 

with them against the king ; and more than once subtenants were 
excused for rebellion because they had risen in obedience to the 
command of the lord to whom they owed direct allegiance. 

A second characteristic of English feudalism was its compara- 
tive orderliness. There was much in the feudal system which 
tended to cause disorder. The right to the military services of 
his vassals was a constant temptation to the baron to make use 
of these services. But the English kings were generally much 
stronger than their barons. The Conqueror, William Rufus, and 
Henry I were strong enough to keep feudal conditions tolerably 
orderly. No private warfare among the barons was allowed, 
rebellions were put down, the fulfillment of feudal requirements 
insisted on, and there was little systematic or long-continued 
oppression of the subtenants or of the masses of the people by 
their higher feudal lords. Of course this result was accomplished 
only by frequent campaigns, much ravaging of the country, and 
heavy taxation ; but it was accomplished. Nevertheless this good 
order depended entirely on the king. As feudal customs put 
great power into the hands of the barons, who dwelt in their forti- 
fied castles and possessed judicial and pecuniary rights over their 
tenants, feudal society . at its best was not favorable to justice 
and good order. At its worst it was little better than anarchy. 
The weak hand of Stephen and the paralysis of the government 
during Matilda's contest for the throne let loose all the power 
for evil of the higher feudal nobles, and the terrible disorders 
already described ensued. 

Feudalism was of such vast importance during this period that 
it has seemed best to give a systematic description of its main 
characteristics in this place. We must now return to the narra- 
tive of events. 

115. Succession of Henry of Anjou. — The civil war dragged 
on for fifteen years, going sometimes in favor of Stephen, some- 
times in favor of Matilda. After 1152 the interests of Matilda 
were represented by her son, Henry of Anjou, who had succeeded 



140 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

his father as count of Anjou, Touraine, and Maine. Matilda 
then retired from the contest, but Henry continued to win some 
successes for her side. Finally the death of Stephen's eldest son 
offered an opportunity for a compromise. This was arranged at 
Wallingford in 1153 by some of the most influential bishops, and 
consisted of an agreement that Stephen should be acknowledged 
by all as king during the remainder of his life, but should accept 
Henry as his heir. On these terms a general peace was made, 
known as the "Treaty of Wallingford." The partisans of Matilda 
and Henry took oaths of allegiance to Stephen as their lawful 
ruler, and Stephen's men did homage to Henry as their future 
king. A great council was held, where the late rivals met in ami- 
cable discussion and made certain regulations for the kingdom. 
Peace was at last attained. Stephen lived only one more year, 
dying in the fall of 11 54 while Henry was absent in Normandy. 

116. Literature of the Norman Period. — This period had seen 
more writing than might have been expected. The Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle, which had been continued in several forms from the 
time of Alfred, was kept up for a short time after the Conquest 
in two or three monasteries, but came to an end with 1154. In 
the later entries the language is incorrect and artificial. Anglo- 
Saxon was evidently unfamiliar to the writer. As a matter of fact, 
it had gone out of existence as a written language, though it was 
still spoken by the great mass of the people and was soon to come 
again into written usage in a somewhat changed form. 

In Latin there was a great deal of writing during the century 
that followed the Norman Conquest. The philosophical and 
theological writings of such men as the two great archbishops 
Lanfranc and Anselm have already been mentioned. Scholars 
who had come from Normandy, and some who were of English 
birth, recorded the history of their own time from personal obser- 
vation and inquiry, and that of earlier periods from the Anglo- 
Saxon chronicles. Notwithstanding their indebtedness to the 
latter, they considered the language in which they were written 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 



141 



barbarous, and held them in but small respect. William of Malmes- 
bury, a Norman chronicler who lived in the reigns of Henry I and 
Stephen, says patronizingly, "There are indeed some notices of 
antiquity written in the vernacular tongue, after the manner of a 
chronicle, and arranged according to the years of our Lord." 

All the writers of this period were churchmen, mostly monks, 
who in the quiet of their monasteries found leisure and oppor- 
tunity to write, notwithstanding the confusion and trouble of the 
outer world. Florence, 
a monk of Worcester, 
Henry, an archdeacon 
of Huntingdon, and 
several others made up 
a group of writers who 
shared in the European 
interest in literature of 
that period and wrote 
quite voluminously. 
They chose, for the 
most part, history and 
biography as their sub- 
jects. Geoffrey of 
Monmouth, who died 
in the same year as 
Stephen, wrote a fabu- 
lous History of the Britons, which became the fountain head of 
the legends of Arthur and Merlin and many other stories of 
mediaeval romance. 

117. Architecture and Building. — The Normans were great 
builders. A contemporary writer says, " You might see churches 
rise in every village and monasteries in the towns and cities, built 
after a style unknown before." Castles and churches were almost 
the only buildings of importance in existence at this period. 
Baronial and royal fortresses were erected and enlarged from 




^•.^"iW? ">'»-tw»<« -»«- 



The 



White Tower " of the Tower of London, 
built by William the Conqueror 



142 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



time to time. The " White Tower," the oldest and most con- 
spicuous of the group of buildings which now make up the Tower 
of London, is perhaps the most famous of William's castles. It 
was built in the early years of the Conquest, under the direction 
of Gundulf, bishop of Rochester, a famous architect, who had 
already built a castle of the same general appearance in Nor- 
mandy, and who began the building both of the castle and the 
cathedral of Rochester. Westminster Hall was built by the orders 
of William Rufus, and though since remodeled and frequently 

wmmamwnsk ±riT«SS 

character. It was 

one of the first large 

buildings erected 

for uses neither military 

nor religious. 

Of the twenty early 
cathedrals as they now 
stand in England, thirteen still 
show portions which were built 
within the Norman period. One 
of the earliest was that of Can- 
terbury, which was begun by 
Lanfranc, but was destroyed by 
fire and then rebuilt in the reign of Henry I. The architecture 
of the large and beautiful churches which the Norman bishops and 
many of the abbots began to build was of the style which is called 
" Norman," marked by round ornamented arches and heavy pillars. 
The work of building a great church took a long time and frequently 
required the efforts of several generations. Nevertheless many 
of the cathedrals, such as Durham, Hereford, Ely, Winchester, 
Exeter, and Norwich, were completed, at least in many of their 
parts, as we still see them, by the bishops who took part in the 
councils, and sometimes in the wars, of the Norman kings. 




/e of Hereford 
Cathedral 



ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS 143 

118. Summary of the Norman Period. — The century that lay 
between the battle of Hastings in 1066 and the accession of 
Henry II in 1154 was for England in a certain sense a period 
of beginnings, or at least of such a transformation of old customs 
as to make them practically new. It was the beginning of a new 
line of kings and of a much more highly organized government. 
It was the beginning of a more universal and well-defined feudal- 
ism. It was the beginning of a much closer connection of the 
English church with the center of the church at Rome. It was 
the beginning of better architecture, better writing, better trade. 
The old Anglo-Saxon race, which was somewhat sluggish in its 
nature and backward in its civilization, was quickened and stirred 
and elevated by its conquerors. This was a partial compensation 
for the loss of their national independence and for the oppressive 
rule of a powerful government and aristocracy, all the more hate- 
ful because it was even yet to the great mass of the people a rule 
by foreigners. 

General Reading. — Freeman, William the Conqueror (Twelve English 
Statesmen). Johnston, Normans in Eicrope. Hunt, Norman Britain, 
is a good small book on this whole period. Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, 
chaps, i and ii, gives a short survey of this period preliminary to its special 
subject. Green, Short History, chap, ii, sects. 5-6. Ramsay, Foundations 
of English History, Vol. II, chaps, i-xxviii, is very full on this period. Still 
fuller works on special sides of the period are Pollock and Maitland, 
History of English Law, chaps, i-iv ; and Stephens, History of the English 
Church, 1066-1272, chaps, i-viii. For feudalism on the continent, see 
Robinson, History of Western Etirope, chaps, viii and ix. 

Contemporary Sources. — William of Malmesbury, Chronicle. The 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in one of its forms continues to 11 54. Interesting 
extracts from this and other sources are given in Lee, Nos. 45-57 ; Colby, 
Nos. 13-21 ; and Kendall, Nos. 14-18. No. 47 in the first of these, No. 16 
in the second, and the same number in the third is the striking description 
of William's character from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, year 1087. The 
charter of Henry I is printed in Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6, 
and in Adams and Stephens, Documents Illustrative of English Constitu- 
tional History. For feudalism see documents in Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. IV, No. 3. Extracts from letters etc. in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 54-87. 



144 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Poetry and Romance. — The Red King, by Kingsley, and the White 
Ship, by Rossetti, are two ballads found in Miss Bates and Miss Coman, 
English History told by English Poets, an interesting collection of historical 
poetry intended as a reading book for schools. Kipling, Puck of Pook's 
Hill, contains several spirited stories of this period. 

Special Topics. — (i) Effect of the Conquest on the English Language, 
Lounsbury, English Language, chaps, iv and v; (2) the Oath of Salisbury, 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, year 1086; (3) Anarchy under Stephen, ibid., year 
1 137; (4) the New Forest, Baring, article in English Historical Review, 
July, 1901, pp. 427-438; (5) the Cistercian Monasteries, Miss Cooke, ibid., 
October, 1893, PP- 625-676; (6) Contest about Investitures in Germany, 
Robinson, History of Western Europe, pp. 154-172; (7) Feudalism on the 
Continent, Seignobos, The Feudal Regime, translated by Dow; (8) the 
Exchequer, Hall, Antiquities of the Exchequer, chaps, iii and iv ; (9) Norman 
Architecture, Traill, Social England, Vol. I, pp. 319-325. 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY. 1154-1216 

119. Accession and Character of Henry II. — When Henry of 
Anjou 1 became king in 11 54 he was in a more independent 
position than any king had been since William the Conqueror. 
There was no other claimant for the crown ; he had already been 
acknowledged by both parties' in the late civil wars ; and weary 
of the anarchy under Stephen all classes were ready to accept a 
strong ruler. Henry was, besides, one of the most energetic men 
that ever sat upon a throne. He was in constant restless activity, 
— traveling, fighting, listening to law cases, drawing up new enact- 
ments, conferring with his ministers, disputing with his opponents ; 
and taking his recreation only in the equally active form of hunt- 
ing. His form corresponded to these traits of character. He 

1 Henry and the seven rulers who followed and were descended from 
him, reigning in all for nearly two hundred and fifty years, are known as 
the Angevin line of kings, the word Angevin being taken from Anjou in 
France, Henry's birthplace and paternal inheritance. They are also spoken 
of as the Plantagenet family; Henry's father, Geoffrey of Anjou, having 
been given the nickname Geoffrey plante de genet, from the broom flower 
(planta genista), either because he wore a sprig of that plant for a badge 
or because he was so fond of hunting and riding over the broom-covered 
heaths. The dates of the reigns of Henry II and his sons which are cov- 
ered by this chapter were as follows : 

Henry II 
reigned 1154-1189 

Henry, died 1 183 Richard I Geoffrey, died n 86 John 

reigned 1189-1199 reigned 1199-1216 

Arthur, died 1203 

** 145 



146 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

was heavily built, with broad shoulders, thick neck, powerful arms 
and long b5ny hands, red hair, which he kept cut short, and a 
florid face. His voice was harsh, but his eyes were soft till he 
grew angry, when they blazed out, and his passion was terrible 
enough to frighten the boldest of his barons. He was frugal in 
his eating and drinking, an early riser, careless in his dress, 
devoted to business, and easily accessible to all who wished to 
speak to him. He was only twenty-one years of age when he 
came to the throne, but had already been engaged in the work 
of war and government in Anjou for six years. It is no wonder 
that a man of this nature, training, and position should leave a 
deep personal impression upon his own and later times. 

120. Henry's Dominions. — England was only one of the lands 
over which Henry ruled. From his mother he inherited Normandy 
and Maine as well as England ; from his father he inherited Anjou 
and Touraine, and later obtained the overlordship of Brittany. 
He married Eleanor of Aquitaine and obtained thereby her mag- 
nificent paternal heritage of Poitou, Guienne, and Gascony. He 
claimed also the overlordship of Scotland and Wales, and before 
his death became lord of Ireland. The dominions of which Henry 
was lord, directly and indirectly, extended from the Pyrenees to 
the Orkney Islands. He was sometimes in one part, sometimes 
in another, of this territory. Of the thirty-five years of his reign 
more than twenty-one were spent in France, and only thirteen in 
England. His trips to England were usually only a few months 
or at most a year or two in length, but each one of them was 
filled with an activity that accomplished what seemed the work 
of many times such a period. 

121. Lack of Unity in England. — Even in England it was no 
united nation over which Henry ruled, the people being partly 
English and partly Norman. Some of the laws and customs of 
this twofold race were of Anglo-Saxon origin, some had been 
brought from Normandy, while still others had been adopted 
since the Conquest. The courts that carried out the laws and 



TTTTT 

ANGEVIN DOMINIONS 



Scale of Miles 
60 100 ISO 200 



ZZJ Countries held by Vassals from Henry II 
Held by Henry II from a superior king j 
Held by Henry II in his own right 



R TH 




THE » |H 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 147 

enforced established custom drew their authority in some cases 
from the king, in some from the barons, in some from the church. 
Many cases were brought before the old local courts of hundreds 
and shires. Three languages were habitually used : the Latin of 
the churchman, the chronicler, and the keeper of records ; the 
French of the noble, the merchant, and the lawyer ; the English 
of the peasantry. These languages reflected the division of the 
nation into classes. There were two contending principles of 
government : that which would make the king and his council 
supreme over all, and that which would leave much of the power 
of government to the feudal barons ; besides which must be taken 
into account the claim of churchmen to be practically independ- 
ent of all government except that of the church. Thus Eng- 
land was far from being a single well-organized nation, with one 
law, one government, and a united national feeling. These things 
were only attained in their fullness after the passage of several 
centuries. Nevertheless the foundations at least of national unity 
were laid within Henry's long reign of thirty-five years; and 
the reigns of his two sons saw the conclusion of the process of 
national consolidation. 

122. Restoration of Order. — The first step in the process was 
the restoration of order. As a result of the anarchy and the long- 
continued civil war of Stephen's reign, England was in a condi- 
tion of indescribable confusion. The government, as it had been 
organized in the time of Henry I, had fallen greatly into decay. 
Taxation, justice, military service, and respect for royal powers 
and privileges had all been largely disregarded during the reign 
of Stephen. Hence the new king's first efforts were naturally 
given to the establishment of the authority of government. 

Immediately on Stephen's death Henry came to England 
and remained there for more than a year. Within this year the 
old fabric of government was gradually built up again. Great 
councils were held, the curia regis was reconstituted, the Excheq- 
uer began to meet again with great regularity. An able justiciar, 



148 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Richard de Lucy, was appointed ; the old treasurer, the nephew of 
Roger of Salisbury, whom Stephen had imprisoned, was released 
and reappointed to office ; and Thomas of London, otherwise 
known as Thomas Becket, or Thomas a Becket, a brilliant young 
churchman, was made chancellor. Sheriffs were appointed, and 
the armed bands of foreigners who had served in the civil war 
were dismissed. The barons who had erected castles in Stephen's 
time were ordered to dismantle them or hand them over to the 
king. Powerful men who had seized lands unjustly from those who 
were weaker were ordered to restore them. 

There was naturally some resistance to these reforms, but the 
disorders, had been so great that almost everybody recognized the 
need for an assertion of authority. Those of the great nobles who 
resisted by force of arms, Henry defeated in 1 1 5 5 and deprived of 
their castles. But, as in the time of Henry I, the greatest con- 
trol was exercised over the nobles by subjecting them, like every 
one else, to the authority of the royal courts, requiring them to 
settle their disputes in the curia regis or before the judges on their 
circuits, and compelling them to pay the dues which they owed 
the king into the Exchequer and according to its rules. 

123. The Judicial Assizes. — The courts, the jury system, and 
the common law, with the equal protection against injustice which 
they give to all, have been special objects of pride to the English 
race. It was at this time and by Henry II and his ministers that 
their bases were laid. The subject is a somewhat difficult one, 
but it is well worth trying to understand, as all the later history of 
England depends to a considerable extent upon it. In the following 
paragraphs, therefore, an effort will be made to explain as clearly as 
possible the main foundations of the legal system under Henry II. 

Henry's reorganization of the government was not merely a 
restoration of the old system. Much that was new was intro- 
duced. The work of the curia regis and of its justices * as 

1 In England the word justice is used in cases where in America the 
word judge is more usual. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 149 

they went on circuit was not only regulated but improved and 
extended. The king's ministers had always exercised the right 
of deciding cases immediately interesting the king, such as dis- 
putes between tenants in chief and matters in which the king's 
rights were questioned. They had also inflicted punishment for 
murder, burglary, and other great crimes, where these had not 
been committed within the jurisdiction of some feudal lord with 
high judicial powers of his own. Now the king gave the justices 
instructions to carry their duties and powers still further. He 
laid down the fundamental principle that no free landholder 
could be sued concerning his land except in the king's courts. 
An edict called the Great Assize? issued early in his reign, pro- 
vided the means by which any freeman whose title to land was 
disputed might resort to the king's justices to have the question 
of the validity of his title decided. Even if the case was under 
trial in a baron's court or in a shire court, the king's judges 
might order proceedings stopped until they had time to take it 
up. Other assizes of a similar kind were issued to meet various 
needs until any case involving the possession of land, and many 
other cases, could be brought into the king's court. There 
were, however, many burdens and difficulties connected with the 
procedure. The fees demanded by the curia were very high. 
In fact the principal motive of the king in the extension of the 
system of royal courts was the increase of income it brought him. 
As the justices had to be with the king wherever he might be 
when he was in England, and even sometimes abroad, those who 
had suits before them were required to follow them up from place 

1 The word assize was used at this period to mean an edict or law issued 
by the king, usually with the assent of the great council. Some of the 
assizes were intended to be publicly proclaimed, but most of them were 
in the form of instructions or rules of action given to the king's justices. 
The word assize was also applied to the procedure under such rules. It is 
to be noticed that until this time most of the bodies of law issued by the 
kings professed to be merely a restatement of the old customs of the people. 
The assizes of Henry II deliberately introduced new laws. 



150 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

to place, often from one end of England to another, with their 
witnesses, until a trial could be obtained, unless a justice of the 
king should come on a circuit in their part of the country and 
they could get the case before him while there. 

124. Origin of Trial by Jury. — The decisions given by the 
king's justices were more valued than those given in a baron's 
court or in a shire or hundred court. The principal reason for 
this was that the king's justices, in cases under the assizes, used a 
new and better form of trial than ordeal, compurgation, or wager 
of battle. This was what was then called an " inquisition," or 
" recognition," but afterwards grew into the trial by jury now used 
in all English-speaking countries. As the justices of the curia 
regis wielded all the authority of the king, they had powers which 
were not possessed by other courts. One of these powers of 
which they made constant use was to require persons to attend 
the court and to give information upon oath upon any matter 
submitted to them by the justices. A "recognition" was a pro- 
cedure under which the judges, when asked, issued an order 
for a number of men, usually twelve and usually neighbors of the 
parties engaged in the dispute, to investigate the case and give 
a sworn " verdict " 1 as to which of the claimants had the better 
right to the land about which they were disputing. These selected 
men, called jurors 2 because they had to swear to tell the truth, 
were generally required to be knights or men of equally high 
position in the community, and they were bound to decide in 
favor of one or the other of the litigants and to report to the 
judges at an appointed time and place. If they neglected to 
give the decision or could be proved to have given an unjust 
decision, they were heavily fined. 

Disputants in land cases were thus given a decision based not 
on the barbarous method of ordeal or of wager of battle, but on the 

1 From verum dictum, a true statement. 

2 From juro, I swear. Any one who gives a decision on oath is a juror, 
such as a road-juror or a juror of awards. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 151 

sworn opinions of their own neighbors, who must generally have 
been familiar with the facts of the case. The men who gave a 
verdict were witnesses and jurymen combined. They discussed 
the matter among themselves and only reported to the judge the 
results they reached. In later times the system was gradually 
changed so that the whole proceeding had to be carried out in 
the presence of the judge, who decided all points of law. The 
jury also came, in the course of time, to be divided into two 
bodies. Those who possessed information on the matter were 
required to give their testimony under oath. Those who knew 
nothing beforehand about the facts were required to listen and 
give a sworn judgment based on what they had heard. The for- 
mer were of course the witnesses, as they are called in a modern 
court ; the latter alone are the jury. It is known as the " petty 
jury " or " trial jury." Thus the modern jury system was applied 
to the settlement of land disputes, and after a while of other civil 
suits. It was extended in time to a decision as to the guilt or 
innocence of a person charged with a criminal offense. Ordeals 
were forbidden by the Lateran Council of 12 15, while compurga- 
tion and wager of battle were gradually superseded by this better 
system and in time became entirely obsolete. But the change 
only came gradually and was not completed until the fifteenth 
century. What was done in Henry's time was simply the substi- 
tution in certain kinds of cases of a sworn decision by neighbors 
for the earlier and cruder forms of trial. 

125. Origin of Indictment by Jury. — In 11 66 Henry issued 
a new assize, known as the Assize of Clarendon, 1 the object of 
which was to introduce a reform in the punishment of crimes, 
much as the Great Assize had been intended to introduce reforms 
in the settlement of land disputes. There had been in recent 
times an unusually large amount of crime. Murders, assaults, 
and thefts were of constant occurrence, and the criminals often 

1 This assize can be found in Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6. 
The most important clauses are 1, 2, 14, and 15. 



352 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

remained undiscovered or unpunished. One cause of this was 
that there was nobodv whose regular duty it was to accuse or 
prosecute offenders. Unless the person injured or his relatives 
or friends brought the criminal to justice, no one was especially 
interested in doing so, and tha offender was never charged with 
the crime. Another cause of immunity was the inefficiency of 
the courts held by feudal lords who possessed the right to punish 
criminals under their jurisdiction. Long after this time there 
were still thirty-five private gallows in Berkshire alone, but the 
men who suffered on them were few compared with the number 
who had committed capital offenses. 

Both of these difficulties were met by the Assize of Clarendon. 
It provided that when the king's justices came to the county 
court twelve men from each hundred and four men from each 
manor in the hundred should be put upon their oath and required 
to give the names of any men they knew in their hundred or 
manor who had been accused or suspected of having committed 
any of the greater crimes. In this way a jury had the public 
duty of making accusations, whether they had any personal inter- 
est in the matter or not. Such an accusation made by the neigh- 
bors of any man was considered to indicate the probability of his 
guilt. Therefore such a person was to be arrested and sent to the 
ordeal of water. If he failed in the ordeal he was to be punished. 
Even if he succeeded he might still be banished. As the law 
says, "If they are of very bad reputation and publicly and dis- 
gracefully spoken ill of by the testimony of many and. lawful men, 
they shall abjure the lands of the king so that within eight days 
they shall go over the sea, unless the wind shall have detained 
them." The assize gave the sheriffs the right to go on the lands 
of any feudal lord to make arrests on this kind of accusation and 
to keep an oversight of the good order of the vassals even when 
they were not accused by a jury. Jails were to be built, fugitive 
criminals were to be sought for from county to county, and other 
provisions for efficiency were made. But the two points of special 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 153 

originality and importance in the Assize of Clarendon were the 
jury of indictment, or grand jury of modern times, and the taking 
away of the independence of the feudal courts in criminal matters. 
Within the next century the custom arose of giving a " recogni- 
tion" to accused criminals instead of sending them to the ordeal, 
and thus trial by jury as well as accusation by jury was introduced 
into the criminal procedure of the courts as it had already been 
in the decision of civil cases. These two processes of accusation 
and of trial by a jury make up what is known as the " jury system." 

126. The Common Law and the Common Law Courts. — The 
curia regis, acting as a combined body, and its members when 
they went on circuit through the country, kept a record of the 
cases settled and the decisions given. The justices were highly 
trained, learned men, and their decisions were given on principles 
which were logical, consistent, and conformable to custom. This 
body of principles as understood by the king's justices and as 
shown in the decisions given by them came to be known as the 
"common law." The judges usually insisted upon these general 
principles even where they came into conflict with the special 
local customs or privileges of particular persons or communities, 
and enforced the decisions based upon them. This enforcement 
of the enlightened and universal common law by the justices who 
passed from time to time over all England, or decided questions 
brought before the curia regis from all parts of the country did 
much to bring about uniformity in both national law and custom. 

The system of recognitions, the common law, the freedom 
from partisanship, and the powers of enforcement possessed by 
the king's courts gradually drew all cases into them that could 
readily be brought there, and made these courts busy, powerful, 
and, through their fees and fines, profitable to the king. Besides 
this activity of the great courts it became usual to think of all 
lesser courts as being dependent on the king. The county and 
hundred courts were brought more directly under the control of 
the king's officials. Twice a year the sheriff of each county went 



154 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

from hundred to hundred through his county, holding a court in 
each hundred to inquire into certain matters of smaller moment. 
This circuit was called the sheriff's ioum and leet. The county 
courts continued to be held monthly as of old, also under the 
presidency of the sheriff. But from time to time one or two of 
the king's justices would come into the county on their circuit 
and hold a county court of especial dignity. Even those who 
were exempted from attendance at other times were bound to 
come on such occasions. The manor courts held by the feudal 
barons became gradually of less importance, with fewer cases and 
those of a more petty description. 

127. The Assize of Arms. — Much of Henry's time and interest 
was necessarily given to fighting in one part or another of his 
scattered dominions. For war purposes, in his longer campaigns, 
he relied for the most part on mercenaries, soldiers by trade, 
whom he hired in Gascony, Flanders, or in fact where he could 
find them. For home use in England, however, and for wars on 
the unsettled borders of Scotland and Wales, the king seems to 
have thought that the body of the people might be effectually 
armed and organized into a sort of militia. The old idea of the 
Anglo-Saxon fyrd had never been entirely lost, and the common 
people had been summoned out occasionally by the Norman kings, 
and more than once by Henry himself or his justiciars. In 1181 
the king made this more regular by issuing the " Assize of Arms." 1 
This made it compulsory for every freeman in England to be 
provided with arms according to his means and station in society. 
Every man of the rank of knight was to provide himself with a 
horse and full armor ; those of rank somewhat lower, with full 
armor without the horse, and so on down to the simple freeman or 
burgess, who must have a coat of mail, a steel cap, and a spear. 
These arms were not to be sold or put in pawn, and were to 

1 This assize can be found in Adams and Stephens's Documents Illus- 
trative of English Constitutional History. Its most important clauses are 
I, 2, 3, 4, and 8. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 155 

be used only when their owner was called out for national service 
by the king's command. Thus in addition to the king's mer- 
cenary forces and the feudal lords and their subtenants, the 
freemen of the country were provided with appropriate arms and 
bound to hold themselves ready for military service if called upon. 
128. Feudal Taxation. — The value of the military service owed 
to the king by the tenants in chief had never been very great. 
Probably the whole number of knights or fully armed horse- 
soldiers whom the king could summon was never greater than 
five thousand, and their service was often ineffective because of 
the short period for which it was owed. On the other hand, the 
money payment due from the tenants in chief as part of their 
feudal service was profitable to the king and could be made more 
so. The enforcement of these financial claims was the constant 
policy of Henry II and his ministers. Reliefs were rigorously col- 
lected ; the guardianship of minor heirs and the marriage of heir- 
esses and widows of tenants in chief were sold to those who would 
pay into the Exchequer the highest sums for them. 1 Infractions 
of feudal rules were punished by the imposition of money fines. 
An aid collected on the marriage of the king's eldest daughter was 
levied with new and strict completeness. Above all, Henry repeat- 
edly made demands of a kind almost unknown before, under the 
name of scutage. This was a payment of so much on each knight's 
fee, demanded by the king from his tenants in chief when he was 
in special need of money for the purposes of a war. It is true 
that the king summoned the barons much less frequently to fulfill 
their direct military service to him than had been done before. 
Instead of this he used the money obtained by collection of the 
scutages to hire mercenary soldiers. Scutages thus came to be 
looked upon as payments made instead of military service. They 
were a natural result of the increasing amount of money in exist- 
ence and the extended military needs of the king. 

1 Instances of such payments will be found in Translations and Reprints^ 
Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 25-28. 



156 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

In these various ways, by bringing suits into the king's courts, 
by transforming all feudal relations into the shape of money pay- 
ments, by organizing armies without calling upon the barons, the 
king and his ministers were reducing feudalism in England to less 
and less importance. It remained scarcely more than a form of 
taxation and of landholding. The royal government was fast 
becoming absolute, and the king getting into his own hands all 
political power. 

129. The Church. — There was one other organization in Eng- 
land, however, whose powers were on the increase, even while 
feudalism was becoming less important. This was the church. 
The division of England into two provinces, of these into bish- 
oprics, of which there had come to be nineteen, and of the whole 
country into parishes, of which there were some eight or ten thou- 
sand, has already been described. 1 Since the Norman Con- 
quest the organization of the church had become more complex. 
Churchmen were more separated from laymen and more closely 
united with one another. The expression " the church " had 
come to be understood not as the whole body of Christians of 
whom the clergy were merely the religious leaders, but the clergy 
alone, separated by powers and privileges, laws, and an organiza- 
tion of their own, from those who did not belong to their order. 

The bishoprics were endowed with extensive lands and received 
rents and income from many sources. The center of each bish- 
opric was its cathedral. Some of these cathedral establishments 
were monasteries, with bodies of monks ; others were not so 
organized. Connected with each cathedral of the latter class was 
a group of canons or cathedral clergy. At some cathedrals there 
were as few as four or five canons, at others as many as forty or 
fifty. These canons fulfilled various duties connected with the 
religious work of the cathedral church, and when the bishop died 
it was they who elected his successor, though the man they elected 
was usually nominated by the king. As an organized body the 
1 See pp. 49-50. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 157 

canons were spoken of as the chapter of the cathedral. The 
head of a chapter was the dean. The bishop's position with its 
powers and duties, partly spiritual as a great officer of the church, 
partly temporal as a feudal landholder and baron of the kingdom, 
has already been explained. Some of his older functions had 
now come to be performed by the archdeacofis, of whom there 
were usually several in each diocese. 

130. The Church Courts. — The principal duty of the arch- 
deacon was to take charge in the bishop's name of much of the 
judicial work of the church. The church courts had become of 
importance only since the Norman Conquest. It was one of the 
laws of William I that church matters should not be decided in 
hundred and shire courts as before, but by the bishops in courts 
of their own, as on the continent. Since that time church suits 
had become vastly more numerous. All courts at this time tried 
to get as many cases before them as possible. This was princi- 
pally for financial reasons. The fees that were paid for the privi- 
lege of having suits heard and the money penalties that were 
inflicted went of course to the court before which the case came. 
Therefore, just as the king's court and the barons' courts were try- 
ing to get or keep control of as much jurisdiction as possible, the 
church courts, held by bishops and archdeacons, tried to extend 
the variety and number of cases that should come regularly before 
them. An additional motive was the desire to preserve the inde- 
pendence of the church from all control by lay powers. 

During the century since the Conquest they had been very 
successful in extending the judicial powers of the church. Gen- 
erally speaking, churchmen contended that all cases of the follow- 
ing classes had to be tried in the church courts : those in which 
clergymen were concerned; those in which church property was 
concerned ; those which had to do with marriages, with wills, and 
with inheritance ; and those which involved any question of a 
breach of an oath. The church courts had charge also of all 
matters of religious belief, and of punishment for many forms 



158 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of moral ill-doing which were not crimes in the eyes of the com- 
mon law. This judicial power of the church was not an unnatu- 
ral growth. The more confusion there was in the other branches 
of government the more were the services of the church courts 
needed. The inefficiency of secular government during Stephen's 
time was largely made up for by the growing activity of the eccle- 
siastical courts. Civilized life could hardly have gone on in early 
times if much of the work which in modern times is done by gov- 
ernment had not then been done by the church. 

131. The Canon Law. — The decisions in these church courts 
were based to a certain extent on English church customs. But 
gradually in Europe at large a great body of precedents and deci- 
sions of church councils, of popes, and of bishops grew up that 
belonged to all parts of the Christian world. This was known as 
the " canon law." About 1 140 a collection of decisions and prin- 
ciples of the canon law, the " Decretum," was made by a monk 
of Bologna, named Gratian, and obtained a sort of official accept- 
ance as having authority on the questions discussed in it. After- 
wards from time to time new collections of decisions were made, 
and the canon law came to be a system and a study in itself. It 
had the same authority in the church courts in England that the 
common law had in the king's courts. Young clergymen went 
abroad to make a special study of the canon law, or spent years 
in the households of bishops, where it was studied and taught. 
Lawyers familiar with the canon law and pleading in the church 
courts often found that they had more business and better fees 
than those practicing before the common-law judges. 

132. The Clergy. — The duties connected with the cathedrals, 
the church courts, and the parish churches required a large num- 
ber of men. Not only bishops, canons, archdeacons, and parish 
priests, but many officials, clerks, advocates, messengers, servants, 
teachers, stewards of church lands, and others were needed to ful- 
fill the varied duties and administer the large property and income 
of the church. All these were churchmen, admitted to at least 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 159 

the lower degrees of the ecclesiastical order. Even boys who 
were studying at cathedral schools or at the universities were 
held to enjoy some of the privileges of the clergy. 

Besides the secular clergy there was a great body of monks 
and nuns. There had been a revival of monasticism soon after 
the time of the Norman Conquest of England. The old Bene- 
dictine order was considered by many not to be strict enough 
in its rules. Several reformed orders arose, most of them starting 
from monasteries in France. The Cistercians, the Cluniacs, the 
Augustinian canons, and others were formed with more rigid rules 
of life and more complete separation from the world. Kings, 
nobles, and lesser men gave lands, and monastery. after monastery 
was founded, often in remote districts, and filled with monks 
or nuns of one or other of the new orders. One hundred and 
fifteen monasteries were founded in England in Stephen's 
reign, and one hundred and thirteen in the reign of Henry II. 
Although this rapidity of foundation did not keep up, yet there 
were soon added to the two hundred or so early Benedictine 
houses a vast number of others large and small. 1 Each one of 
these had its group of buildings, its body of members, officials, 
and servants, and its landed property ; some perhaps having only 
half a dozen brethren, but others with as many as a hundred 
monks, as many more other inmates, and a vast extent of 
chapels, cloisters, dormitories, hospital, schoolrooms, barns, and 
other buildings. 

133. Appeals to Rome. — All these churchmen were organized 
under their proper authorities and according to established rules, 
but there was one ecclesiastical power above them all. This was 
the pope. Persons dissatisfied with decisions given by the church 
courts appealed to the court of the pope at Rome to have the 
decision reversed or reheard. Churchmen high in position fre- 
quently applied directly to the pope to have their suits settled., 
Such appeals and applications were increasing in number during 
1 See map of early Benedictine abbeys, p. 77. 



160 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. This was due partly to the 
higher claims of power and influence constantly being made by 
the central authority of the church at Rome at that period, and 
partly to the greater number and complexity of the cases com- 
ing up in the church courts in England. 

Thus the clergy were coming to be a class of persons separate 
from the rest of the nation, closely bound together, governed by 
their own rules, tried by their own courts, subject to their own 
laws, supported by their own property, and, above all, apt to feel 
that their first allegiance was due not to the king but to the 
pope. The bonds of connection with the pope were not very 
many, but they .were quite sufficient to make the clergy less sub- 
missive to the king than the laity were. The archbishops were 
required to wait till they received the pallium x from the pope 
before they exercised the duties of their office ; abbots of the 
larger abbeys went to Rome to be confirmed in their offices 
after their election ; certain regular and many occasional pay- 
ments were made from England to the pope ; special representa- 
tives of the pope came to England from time to time ; and, above 
all, appeals were constantly being made from church courts in 
England to the court of the pope. 

This organization and strength of the clergy as a class, and 
their connection with a power outside of the country, were cer- 
tain to lead to conflicts with the government of the country; that 
is to say, with the king and his ministers and officials. Many 
cases of appeal had nothing to do with general questions of 
faith or of morals, the fundamental matters of church authority, 
but with matters of property or office ; and it seemed therefore 
improper for such questions to go out of England for decision. 
Conflicts between king and clergy have been noticed already; 
but the most bitter dispute as to the respective powers of the 
church authorities and those which were exercised by the king 

1 This was a collar or cape of emblematic material and shape, conferred 
by the pope upon every archbishop at the time of his consecration. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 161 

or his ministers was in the time of Henry II. It was partly a per- 
sonal quarrel between King Henry and Thomas, archbishop of 
Canterbury, partly an unavoidable conflict as to the limits of 
power of the church and the state. 

134. Thomas Becket. — Thomas, sometimes called Thomas of 
London, from his birthplace, sometimes Thomas Becket or a 
Becket, — his father's personal name being Becket, — and in later 
times known as St. Thomas of Canterbury, was the most famous 
churchman of his day. He had been educated first in a monas- 
tery school and then at Oxford. He was afterwards a member 
of the household of the archbishop of Canterbury. He studied 
canon law in France and Italy, had visited the papal court at 
Rome, but had returned and was acting as archdeacon of Canter- 
bury when Henry became king. He was learned, brilliant, hand- 
some, and full of life. Henry appointed him to the high office of 
chancellor, became closely attached to him, intrusted him with 
many important duties and enriched him with the gift of valuable 
estates. Many of the reforms of the early part of Henry's reign 
were due to the ability and energy of the chancellor. He had 
a nature that threw itself with entire devotion into whatever 
interest he was occupied with at the time. ^ Fifty-two clerks were 
employed under him when he occupied the office of chancellor. 
He was at this time only nominally a churchman, as he had not 
advanced beyond the order of deacon, and had little personal 
piety or religious interest.^ His manner of life was gorgeous and 
worldly, even beyond that of wealthy noblemen or other great 
ministers of the king. 

After Thomas had been chancellor for eight years, the arch- 
bishopric of Canterbury became vacant and Henry declared his 
intention of making him archbishop as well as chancellor. 
Thomas, who understood better than Henry the rising conflict 
between the church and the government, tried his best to induce 
the king not to place him in such a position of divided allegiance. 
Henry, however, insisted on the appointment, and Thomas was 



162 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

ordained priest, and elected and consecrated archbishop./ He 
now changed his course of life to that of a devout churchman, 
and threw himself as heartily into the work of his archbishopric 
as he had formerly thrown himself into that of student, judge, or 
minister.^ Much to the king's surprise and vexation, he soon 
resigned his chancellorship. The double position of chancellor 
and archbishop and the conflicting claims of king and church had 
proved to be unendurable to a man of Thomas's strenuous nature. 

When the king in 1163 returned from five years' absence in 
France he found his former friend and minister in opposition to 
him. Discord gradually rose higher between the king and the 
archbishop. ^ Henry's ambition to make his government supreme 
in England, introducing good order, royal control, and royal 
taxation everywhere, met an obstacle in the new archbishop as 
soon as any question of the position of the clergy arose? Thomas 
represented all the high ideas of the time concerning the inde- 
pendence of the church, just as Henry represented the power 
of the civil government. Both men were passionate and deter- 
mined^and as one question after another arose in which they were 
opposed, the conflict between them and between the principles 
they represented grew constantly more bitter.^ 

135. The Constitutions of Clarendon. — The points of dispute 
that came up most frequently were those connected with the 
church courts. v^The king claimed that they were doing many 
things that they had no right to do ; that they were deciding 
questions of property which ought to be left to the king's courts, 
giving more lenient punishments to clergymen than they ought to 
suffer, and sending appeals to the pope on questions that belonged 
to English common law.^After many disputes, a great council 
was called to meet at Clarendon in n 64 for the discussion and 
settlement of these matters. At this council, conferences were 
held between the king's ministers and the bishops, and between 
Thomas and Henry. Finally the king forced the archbishop 
to say, " I am ready to keep the customs of the kingdom "J* and 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 163 

the other bishops made the same promise.' Then the question 
came up as to what were the " customs of the kingdom," and a 
group of the members of the council were ordered by the king 
to put them into writing. Some days afterwards they presented 
to the full council a document which the archbishop asserted to 
be the partisan work of the king's justiciar and of hostile barons, 
but which Henry asserted to be a fair statement by the earls, 
barons, and bishops of the old customs which were more particu- 
larly in dispute, and which the churchmen had sworn to obey. 

The most important matters dealt with in this document, which 
became known as the " Constitutions of Clarendon," x had refer- 
ence to the respective powers of the church courts and the king's 
courts.^^^The Constitutions restricted the rights of the church 
courts in many respects, requiring churchmen to bring their suits 
and to answer to suits in the king's courts in many classes of 
cases. One of the principal points of this kind was that which 
required that a clergyman accused of a crime, if found guilty in 
the ecclesiastical court, should be handed over to the ordinary 
courts for punishment. Another forbade appeals from the church 
courts to the pope without the special permission of the king. 
A vast amount of business usually carried on in the church courts 
was transferred with all its profits to the courts of the king. N 

Thomas refused to accept or to put his seal to the Constitu- 
tions thus drawn up. When the king called upon him to do so 
he cried out, " Never, never, while there is a breath left in my 
body." \The other bishops followed his example. The proposed 

1 The Constitutions of Clarendon must not be confused with the Assize 
of Clarendon issued two years afterwards. Clarendon was a small palace 
or hunting seat belonging to the king, on the edge of the New Forest in 
"Wiltshire, to which he summoned the two councils in which these laws 
were decided upon. The Assize of Clarendon established rules for the 
king's courts ; the Constitutions of Clarendon were intended to regulate 
the actions of the church courts. The latter can be found in Translations 
and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6. The most important clauses are 1, 2, 7, 8 
and 13. 



164 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

law really involved the whole question of the degree of independ- 
ence of the church. If Thomas gave way to this interpretation 
of the law he would, as he claimed, not only be going back 
to a period when the church authorities had been too much con- 
trolled by the king, but doing worse. 'He would be accepting new 
laws which would make the church as dependent upon the govern- 
ment as if it had no higher claims and higher duties to uphold and 
perform. He felt that it was putting the church with its officers 
and courts and canon law, with all their enlightenment and superior- 
ity and religious authority, under the control of the mere physical 
power and arbitrary judgment of the king and his ministers. ^ 

136. Exile of Thomas. — The archbishop left the council, and 
protested against putting the Constitutions into forceTthough the 
king insisted that they had been properly drawn up and that they 
should be accepted as law. Both parties appealed to the pope, 
and a long contest ensued .that became more and more bitter and 
more and more personaKT After other councils and quarrels, in 
which Thomas claimed to be in danger of death from the king's 
attendants, he escaped from England secretly with a single 
attendant and went to France. Henry confiscated the estates of 
Thomas and all his adherents, friends, and relatives, and ban- 
ished four hundred of them from England. Thomas in return 
threatened excommunication against the royal ministers who had 
opposed him, held a threat of excommunication over the king him- 
self, and even tried to induce the pope to place England under 
an interdict^ Several interviews were held between the king 
and the archbishop at different times and places in France, but 
they led to no satisfactory results. However, after more than 
six years of exile he obtained permission to return to England to 
take charge of his office, with its long unfulfilled duties. 

137. Murder of Thomas. — The archbishop returned with a 
determination still to insist on the immunities of the church and to 
punish those who had been most active in the struggle against him. 
He proceeded to excommunicate without royal license three of 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 



I6 5 



the bishops who had taken the king's side, and the soldiers of the 
king who had seized and ravaged the estates of the archbishopric. 
News of these actions of the archbishop was taken to the king, 
who was in Normandy, and in one of his habitual fits of wild 
anger he cried out, " What cowards have I nourished in my house 
that not one of them will avenge me on this turbulent priest !" 

Henry can hardly have had any distinct intention when he 
uttered these words, but four of his knights took them seriously 
and vowed to kill the archbishop. They crossed immediately to 
England by separate routes, met again there, gathered a group of 
followers, and a few days afterwards brutally murdered the arch- 
bishop with their swords, 
in the transept of the ca- 
thedral of Canterbury. 

The whole of Europe 
soon rang with the news of 
the deed. Henry heard 
of it with deep regret and 
shut himself up, refusing 
for several days to eat any- The Murder of Archbishop Thomas (from 
thing or to see any one. a manuscript of Matthew Paris) 

The pope likewise refused for days to see any one. The victory 
that Thomas had not been able to win in his lifetime he gained 
by his death. Murdered as it were on the very steps of the 
altar, he was immediately considered a martyr. The people of 
England grieved for him as though he had stood out for their 
universal liberties instead of for those of the church alone. For 
centuries he remained the most popular in the catalogue of 
English saints, and thousands of persons each year made pilgrim- 
ages to the shrine where his body was buried at Canterbury. 
Henry took an oath declaring his innocence of the murder, gave 
a large sum of money for pious uses, and withdrew several of 
the most important clauses of the Constitutions of Clarendon. 
A year afterwards the king made a pilgrimage to Canterbury, and 




1 66 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

entered the city, walking with bare feet and without eating any 
food for the whole day. He threw himself in prayer at the tomb 
of Thomas, then went to the chapter-house, where, on his knees 
before a body of bishops, abbots, and monks, he confessed his 
faults and, baring his shoulders, required each person present to 
strike him three times with the knotted cord used in monastic 
discipline. Afterwards he spent the night in prayer at the tomb, 
attended mass in the morning, and then took horse to London, 
cheerful in mind but so broken in body by his penance that he 
became ill immediately afterwards. Henry's personal penance 
seems to have been quite voluntary and self-inflicted, to relieve 
his own religious sense of wrongdoing. His submission in points 
of policy was wrested from him by the force of necessity, in 
order to recover some of his lost popularity, and he quietly rein- 
troduced much of what he seemed to have given up. 

138. Unpopularity of the King. — The popularity of Thomas 
with the great body of the people had arisen partly from the real 
services performed for them by the church of which he was the 
representative, partly from their sympathy with any form of opposi- 
tion to the stern king. The church came closer than the govern- 
ment to the mass of the people. It did more for them, its lower 
clergy were members of the families of the common people, and its 
courts followed a milder code. The rigorous reforms of the king, 
on the other hand, however useful in putting down disorder and 
introducing unity in the nation, bore with great hardship on all 
classes of the people. The constant fines imposed by the courts, the 
severe punishments inflicted, the hard service on juries, the trans- 
formation of all duties into the form of money payments, were hard 
to endure. His firm government and new laws would bear fruit in 
the future, but their value was not recognized by the men of his 
time. Certainly Henry obtained no popularity, and resistance to 
him was always looked upon with sympathy by many people. 

139. New Revolt of the Baronage. — In his continental domin- 
ions Henry had constant conflicts with the baronage. Thirteen 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 167 

times in one period of two years he had to meet revolts of nobles 
in various parts of his French domains. In England, on the con- 
trary, the heavy hand of the king when he was present, or of the 
justiciars in his absence, and the constant routine of the govern- 
ment kept almost uninterrupted good order. After the struggle 
during the first year of his reign eighteen years passed by without 
resistance to his power. Then in n 73 a new revolt broke out, 
gathering around Henry, the king's eldest son, who had been 
already crowned to secure his succession as the future king of 
England. But this revolt also Henry put down, required a new 
oath of fealty from all Englishmen, high and low, strengthened 
the power of the justices, and assembled the nobles in frequent 
meetings of the great council. Severe as were the struggles in 
which King Henry was engaged throughout his life, he was 
almost uniformly victorious, either by warfare or by policy. 

140. Scotland and Wales. — The king of Scotland had joined 
the rebellious barons of n 73 and invaded the north of England. 
He was, however, defeated and captured by the justiciar and 
sheriff with the people of the northern shires. Henry would not 
release him till he and his barons had done homage to the Eng- 
lish king and acknowledged Scotland to be a fief of England. 
This agreement was made at Falaise, in Normandy, and forms 
an important link in the chain by which England tried to bind 
to herself the northern half of the island. Three times Henry 
invaded Wales also, in the effort to force the Welsh princes to 
submission, but with only partial success. The Welsh mountains 
and the wild methods of Welsh warfare then, as so often before 
and afterwards, made the English invasions fruitless. 

141. The Conquest of Ireland. — In Ireland somewhat greater 
success was attained, although to the overlord ship of both Scot- 
land and Wales there were old claims, while there was no such basis 
for Henry's intrusion into Ireland. Justification for its invasion 
was found partly in a bull given by the pope empowering Henry 
to conquer Ireland and reduce it to a more orderly church 



1 68 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



government, partly in the appeal for help of the native Irish king 
of Leinster, Dermot McMurrough, who had been driven out of 
his dominions. In 1170 a number of English nobles went over 
with McMurrough, defeated the Irish chieftains of the southeast, 
reestablished the fugitive king in his dominions, and gained 
extensive lordships for themselves there in return for their aid. 
The next year Henry himself went to Ireland and received the vol- 
untary homage of these English nobles and of a large number of 
Irish chieftains. After this time the English kings added " Lord 
of Ireland" to their other titles. A representative of the English 
king was appointed to remain in Ireland, and a group of officials 
were established there ; but their power did not extend beyond the 
district surrounding Dublin, later known as the " English Pale." 

142. Close of the Reign. — The last ten years of Henry's life 
were peaceful and successful years as far as his government of 
England was concerned, but his personal happiness was destroyed 
by rebellions in his dominions on the continent in which his sons 

were engaged. He 

-— z_z_ ~ Vi % 

- r- . — - — i CM . C ( ** f ^i?"* Sri^s; A * 



'.-7^—>- 1— »• 



loved his children 
deeply, and his life 
was embittered by 
their entire want of 
affection for him 
and their readiness 
to join with his 
enemies. Time and 
again not only 
Henry, the young 
king, but Richard, 
to whom he had 
granted ' Aquitaine, 
Geoffrey, who was duke of Brittany, and his youngest and best 
beloved son, John, leagued themselves together or with the king 
of France to fight against him. In 1189, when he was ill and 




Tomb of Henry II and his Wife Eleanor in the 
Abbey of Fontevrault 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 



169 




■».; ^Cailjfrgford 



4* \ dM^^d^V 



c=3^ ?-*■ J 'A 







Ireland in the Middle Ages : the Four Kingdoms, the Location of some 
of the Principal Clans, the Principal Towns, and the District later 
jfcnown as the "Pale." 



170 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

unprepared, combined forces of foreign opponents and Angevin 
rebels led by his sons Richard and John and the king of France 
suddenly invaded his French provinces, captured a number of his 
castles, defeated him in battle, and forced him to a humiliating 
treaty. When he learned that even John had been among the 
rebels he was broken-hearted, made no effort to rally from his 
illness, and took no further interest in anything. He died the 
same year, moaning, " Shame, shame on a conquered king." His 
tomb is still perfect in the nunnery at Fontevrault, in his native 
land of Anjou. His son Henry had already died in 1183. 

143. The Literary Revival under Henry II. — The activity of 
this period showed itself in learning and literature as much as 
it did in the development of law and of institutions of state and 
church. A number of learned, gifted, 'and witty men gathered 
around Henry II or occupied offices in England in his time. The 
judges who gave the great decisions on the common law have 
already been spoken of. Many of these studied Roman law in 
Italy and France. Richard, bishop of London and treasurer of 
the realm, wrote a long description of the financial system of the 
government entitled the Dialogue concerning the Exchequer?* and 
Glanville, one of the king's justices, either wrote or helped in the 
writing of a corresponding description of the work of the curia 
regis. This is known as the Treatise concerning the Laws and 
Customs of England. Many of the churchmen of that time were 
learned theologians and philosophers. John of Salisbury wrote a 
book which he named the Polycraticus, discussing a great variety 
of moral, political, and educational questions. The prominent 
men of the time wrote a vast number of letters, many of which 
have been preserved. The old group of chroniclers who wrote 
in the time of Henry I and Stephen had died, but a new group 
of historians, many of whom were pupils, friends, or officials of 
Thomas Becket, arose in the latter part of the reign of Henry II. 

1 A translation of this can be found in Henderson's Select Historical 
Documents, pp. 20-134. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 171 

Some more varied works were written, such as those in which 
Gerald de Barry, or Giraldus Cambrensis, as he called himself, 
described Ireland and Wales and the campaigns against them dur- 
ing his time. There was also a body of verse, produced no doubt 
by various writers, but all usually attributed to Walter Map, arch- 
deacon of Oxford, which ridiculed the vices of the time, especially 
those prevalent among the clergy. These are called Goliardic 
poems, from the name of one of them, the Confession of Bishop 
Golias. 

All these works were written in Latin and could be read only 
by the learned, that is to say, by churchmen. But some of the 
classical Latin works were now translated into French and there 
was some original writing in the same language, which could be 
understood by the barons and their families and even by the 
better educated of the townsmen. 

144. Richard I and the Third Crusade. — The greater activity 
of mind shown by this large amount of writing and reading was 
partly at least a result of the Crusades. Since 1096 the eyes 
of Christendom had been turned eastward towards Palestine, and 
great numbers of volunteers from the western countries of Europe 
had gone in armed bands to capture the Holy Land from the 
Mohammedans who held it, and to secure for themselves princi- 
palities and estates there. On the First Crusade, which succeeded 
in capturing Jerusalem in 1099, Robert of Normandy, the eldest 
son of the Conqueror, and many other French nobles had gone. 
Half a century later another great army was equipped and went 
to Palestine under the leadership of the king of France and the 
German emperor. Just at the close of the reign of Henry II, Jeru- 
salem was recaptured by the Mohammedans, and a third expedi- 
tion was organized in Europe to regain it for the Christians. The 
most prominent leader on the Third Crusade was Richard I, who 
succeeded his father, Henry II, as king of England in 1189. 

Richard was like his father in his ungovernable temper and 
wild outbursts of anger, but in scarcely any other way. He was 



172 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



tall and long limbed. He had greater military genius, but less 
statesmanship. He was fickle instead of persistent, warm-hearted 
instead of calculating. He was proud, cruel, and treacherous. He 
had, however, the poetic gifts, the generous impulses, the mercurial 
temperament of the Aquitanian lands in which he had spent most 
of his life. He was called " Richard Yea and Nay," because he 
was so ready to change the plans on which he had before deter- 
mined. His great power was in his physical and mental capacity 
as a soldier, and in his strenuous and irrepressible courage. 

145. Richard's Capture and Ransom. — The king sailed with 
his crusading army, made up of volunteers from all parts of his 
dominions, from Marseilles by way of Sicily in 1190. The next 
two years were full of romantic and brilliant adventures in which 
Richard won his name of Cmir de Lion, or " Lion-heart," and 
left the reputation of a great warrior in all the eastern countries. 

But the effort to recapture Jerusalem 
and reestablish a great Christian 
kingdom in Palestine was a failure. 
Richard had also quarreled with the 
king of France, the emperor, and 
other leaders. On his journey home 
he was shipwrecked, captured, and 
held for ransom by the emperor in 
Germany. An enormous sum was 
^ demanded by his captors, and this 
• v was at last obtained, or enough of 
it to secure his release. His minis- 
ters in England not only levied the 
Richard I (from the figure on heayy feudal aid tQ ransom the 

his tomb at Fontevrault) A , , , . , . . , 

tenant s lord when captured, which 

could be justified by old custom, but laid new taxes on the 

property of clergy and common people. Many concessions were 

also granted by the king, or in his name, to persons who wished 

privileges from the government and were willing to pay for them. 





FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 173 

146. Influence of the Crusades. — All the power which the gov- 
ernment had secured under Henry II was needed to obtain the 
funds demanded by Richard. He wanted money for his Crusade, 
for his wars on the continent, and for his ransom. Richard 
himself was in his English kingdom but twice in his reign of ten 
years, — once for four months at the time of 
his coronation, and once again for two months, 
five years later. But the government was car- 
ried on in his name by a series of vigorous 
and powerful justiciars who had been officials 
of Henry II. The newly instituted procedure 
of government became well established ; the 
action of the officials in carrying on the Exche- 
quer, the king's court, the circuit courts, and R . , 
the shire courts, was more regular and better 
understood and accepted ; the enforcement of the common law 
and the use of juries were extended ; the transformation of all 
services into the form of money payments was carried further. 
Thus although the personal influence of the king in English affairs 
was unimportant, his absence in the Holy Land and on the con- 
tinent gave an opportunity for government to consolidate itself 
and for the different courts and departments to get in the habit 
of acting for themselves almost apart from the king. 

Some other effects of the Crusades were even more important 
and far-reaching than those upon the government. The restless 
adventurers from England, in their journeys to the East and in 
their intercourse with the Greeks and the Saracens there, came 
in contact with a civilization far higher than they were used to in 
England. They brought back new habits of life and new ideas 
borrowed from these nations. They became used to the different 
kinds of food and dress, and to many conveniences previously 
unknown in western Europe. Besides, they were stirred by the 
experience of foreign travel and adventure. The isolation of 
England was lessened and she was brought by the Crusades more 



174 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

into the general life of Europe, just at the time when the con- 
tinental countries themselves were being awakened by the influ- 
ence of the Crusades. Besides this, more active commerce 
between the East and the West came into existence as a result 
of the Crusades, and England had some share in this. 

147. King John. — Richard had no children, and John, his 
youngest brother, succeeded to the throne of England. 1 John 
was one of the worst kings in English history. Nevertheless, the 
seventeen years of his reign included three occurrences of great 
importance. These were, first, the loss by the king of his domin- 
ions on the continent ; second, a long contest with the pope 
which placed the church in a more independent position than 
before ; and third, a rebellion, as a result of which the king was 
forced to accept for the future certain restrictions on his freedom 
of action. 

148. Loss of the Continental Provinces. — The king of France 
was ambitious to extend his power more completely over the whole 
of that country. The territory immediately subject to him was 
comparatively small. The other provinces were held from him by 
great dukes, counts, and viscounts, who took oaths of feudal alle- 
giance to him but otherwise ruled their own subtenants in prac- 
tical independence. A large group of these provinces was held, 
as has been explained, by the king of England. The king of 
France now took advantage of the hostility to John of many 
of the barons of Normandy, Anjou, and Poitou, listened to the 

1 Geoffrey, who was next younger than Richard and therefore older than 
John, was dead, but his son Arthur was living and according to the usual 
custom of inheritance had a better right to the throne than John. But he 
was a mere child, living in. France, while John was a man thirty-two years 
of age, had lived long in England, and was preferred as his successor by 
Richard. Besides, the strict custom of inheritance of the crown by primo- 
geniture had not yet been fully accepted, and it was felt that the great men 
of the realm might exercise some right of choice. Nevertheless, a large 
party of the barons of the continental dominions declared for Arthur, and 
his claims were upheld by the king of France. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY . 175 

claims of John's nephew Arthur, and summoned John in 1202 to 
attend a feudal court made up of the dukes and counts of France. 
John refused to attend. The king of France then declared his 
territories forfeited by feudal law, and proceeded to march into 
Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Poitou, and to take them immedi- 
ately into his own hands. John made no sufficient effort to resist 
him, the barons of those provinces accepted the French king, and 
thus all John's dominions in France except those in the far south 
were lost to him. England, which had been united through her 
kings with Normandy almost continuously for a century and a 
half, and with the other provinces for more than fifty years, was 
now separated almost completely from the continent. 

This threw England far more on her own resources. The 
barons who had held estates on both sides of the Channel now 
had to dispose of either their Norman or their English possessions 
and become either Frenchmen or Englishmen. The kings too 
from this time forward had far the greater part of their inter- 
ests in England, seldom visiting even the dominions which they 
still possessed in Aquitaine. 

149. Disputed Election to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. — 
The quarrel with the pope occurred in connection with the elec- 
tion of a new archbishop of Canterbury. According to canon law 
the election of a bishop or archbishop should be made by the can- 
ons of the cathedral of the diocese. In England the influence 
of the king had generally been sufficient to induce the canons to 
elect the man he nominated to them. In the case of the arch- 
bishop of Canterbury this was especially the case, as he was in the 
position almost of an official adviser to the king. Besides this 
the other bishops were much interested in the choice of their 
superior, and his selection had therefore often been a matter 
of discussion in a great council. The pope also had a certain 
degree of control of the choice of archbishops, as previously 
explained. Thus there were two parties interested in the election 
of any bishop, the king and the canons of the cathedral. In the 



1/6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

case of an archbishop there were two additional parties, the 
pope and the bishops of the dioceses which were in his province 
and would be under his supervision. 

When the archbishop of Canterbury died in 1205, the canons 
of the cathedral, who had long been desirous of asserting higher 
claims to independence, met the night after his death and, 
without consulting the king or any one else, elected one of their 
number as archbishop. They sent him immediately to Rome to 
obtain consecration and the pallium from the pope. When news 
of what had been done reached John he was extremely angry. 
He appealed to the pope against the election, and immediately, 
without awaiting a decision from the pope, forced the canons by 
threats to hold a new meeting and elect another clergyman, one 
of his own ministers, to be archbishop. The king then put this 
nominee into possession of the estates of the archbishopric. The 
other bishops of the province of Canterbury also appealed to the 
pope. The appeals dragged on as usual at the papal court, till 
after a year and a half the pope with his advisers decided against 
all three parties : against the canons because of their hurried and 
irregular election ; against the other English bishops because 
they had no claims by canon law to interfere ; and against the king 
because his appointee had acted as archbishop while an appeal 
was pending. Under the circumstances, since the representatives 
of all parties were at Rome with power to act, the pope advised 
that they proceed to elect another man then and there, and 
recommended to them a learned and pious English clergyman 
living at the papal court, Stephen Langton. Under pressure 
from the pope this was agreed to by the representatives of the 
chapter of the cathedral, and all the forms of election of Stephen 
Langton were gone through with. 

John, however, was again furious, and a long exchange of em- 
bassies and letters took place. The pope asserted that it was 
in his power and a part of his duty under the circumstances to 
see that Canterbury was provided with a proper archbishop. The 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 177 

king, on the other hand, refused to accept the pope's nominee 
or to give up his own. 

150. The Interdict After three years the pope laid England 

under an interdict : that is to say, all public religious services were 
ordered to be suspended, No church bells were rung, no church 
service was held, no marriage ceremonies were performed, no 
burial service was read over the dead, no wills were probated. 
The country ceased, to all outward appearance, to be a Christian 
land. The people were deprived of their religious services as com- 
pletely as a famine would have deprived them of food. In a reli- 
gious period like the middle ages the distress of the people must 
have been almost as great in the former case as in the latter. 

It was expected that this distress on the part of the people would 
lead them to compel the king to give way, but John cared little 
for the suffering or distress of the people, and himself seemed 
quite without religious feeling. He seized the possessions of the 
bishops who obeyed the interdict and banished them from the 
kingdom. Year after year passed away and still the king refused 
to accept Langton, and continued to oppress the churchmen. 

Then the pope prepared to excommunicate John, 1 to declare 
his deposition from the throne, to absolve the English people 
from their allegiance to him and to intrust the king of France with 
the carrying out of these decrees. Such a threat would mean 
little if an English king were strong and popular in his own 
country, but John had rapidly lost the respect and the love of all 
classes of the people. His failure to keep or to regain Normandy 
and Anjou had made the nobles look on him as either too cow- 
ardly or too indolent for a king. He was untruthful, dishonest, 

1 Excommunication was a solemn service of the church by which the 
man excommunicated was declared to be expelled from the society of 
Christians. He was deprived of all religious services and comforts, was 
pronounced incapable of being legally married or of inheriting or bequeath- 
ing property, and if he died without trffc excommunication being removed, 
he was considered to be without hope of entering heaven after death. 

RE 



i;8 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



and treacherous. He had inflicted private injuries on many of the 
barons and members of their families. He had divorced his wife, 
the countess of Gloucester, and married Isabella of Angouleme, 
a young girl who was already betrothed to one of his nobles on 
the continent. He was profane, tyrannical, and violent, and he 
had therefore neither the support of the clergy nor the love of 
the people. Of all the kings of England none has left the reputa- 
tion of more complete failure as a ruler and greater unworthiness 
as a private man. 

151. Victory of the Pope. — John knew his unpopularity, and 
as he heard of the plots against him and of wild prophecies of his 
death or coming deposition he suddenly gave way, surrendered 
every point for which he had struggled, and made terms with the 
pope. In making this surrender of his 
claims the king humiliated himself far 
more than was necessary. He allowed 
an envoy of the pope to come to England, 
and agreed to receive Langton as arch- 
bishop, to reinstate the exiled bishops, 
and to restore all church property that 
he had seized. He even went one step 
further and transformed the shadowy ac- 
knowledgment of the pope as a superior 
ruler made by some former kings into a 
complete recognition of his feudal supe- 
riority. There was an old claim of the 
King John (from the figure popes that all islands were under their 
on his tomb in Worcester direct control. This had been already 




Cathedral) 



acknowledged in a general way by the 



king of Sicily and partially at least by Henry II and Richard for 
England and Ireland. John, however, now went down on his 
knees before the representative of the pope, resigning his crown 
into the hands of the legate #nd receiving it back from him 
in token that the king would be henceforth the pope's vassal. 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 179 

He drew up and issued a formal acknowledgment of his feudal 
dependence on the pope for England and Ireland, and agreed to 
pay a certain sum to the pope each year as a recognition of it. 
The barons, the clergy, and the people of England made no oppo- 
sition at the time to the king's action, the removal of the interdict 
being gladly welcomed by all. But it was too late for John to regain 
popularity if he had tried. By his unpatriotic subserviency he had 
only separated himself still more completely from all classes of 
Englishmen and obtained the favor of the pope alone. 

152. Revolt against the King. — This unpopularity of the king 
proved to be of great importance during the remaining three 
years of his reign. The strong government built up by Henry II 
and carried on by the justiciars under Richard, with its heavy 
taxation, its severe justice, its laborious services, its universal 
obedience to royal officials, was hard for the people to bear even 
under strong and enlightened rulers and ministers or when par- 
tially rewarded by the glory won by a hero like Richard. When 
it was carried on under John it was not likely to be endured. 
He even increased the pressure of government by making the 
taxes and scutages heavier and collecting them more frequently. 
He summoned the barons to fulfill their military services and 
then did not lead them to war but kept them waiting till they 
paid to go home. He brought foreign mercenaries into England 
to overpower any resistance to his actions. He compelled the 
barons to put their sons into his. hands as pledges for their own 
good behavior. During the interdict he used the courts and 
the Exchequer to plunder the clergy. Since in addition to these 
oppressions the king was personally hateful to so many, a rebellion 
against him was altogether natural. 

In 1 2 13, soon after the close of the conflict with the pope, at 
a great council held by the justiciar at St. Albans, while the king 
was absent in the north of England, it was determined by those 
who were present to demand from the king a return to the old 
laws of the country. At another council a few months later, held 



180 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

at St. Paul's cathedral, London, the archbishop showed to the 
assembled barons and bishops the old coronation charter which 
Henry I had granted. The justiciar laid the demands for good 
government which the barons based on this charter before the 
king, but without result. Soon afterwards a conspiracy to rebel 
was formed among a number of the barons gathered at the abbey 
of St. Edmunds on pretense of making a pilgrimage. They 
agreed to take up arms and make war on the king unless he 
would grant their requests. A series of more strenuous demands 
for better government was then laid before the king by a com- 
mittee of the barons headed by Stephen Langton, the new arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. 

For the first time in English history a united demand by the 
great majority of the prominent men of the country was made 
upon the king. John refused it. Then the barons gathered 
their forces, united at Stamford in the north, marched through 
the midlands, gathering adherents from among the nobility, and 
finally proceeded to London, where the citizens opened the gates 
of the city to them. The king had no party in his favor except a 
few personal retainers. All deserted him except these and some 
government officials whose hearts were with the rebels, but who 
wished to prevent civil war if possible. 

153. The Great Charter. — On the news that London had taken 
the part of the rebels, John gave way, as he had before' given way 
to the pope, and agreed to accept the demands of the barons. He 
met them at Runnymede, a meadow along the Thames near Wind- 
sor Castle, a few miles west of London, June 15, 12 15. There he 
granted the list of demands that the bishops, the barons* and the 
townsmen had drawn .up. These were based on the coronation 
charter of Henry I, though extended to include sixty-three articles, 
including many matters that had come up since the time of Henry I. 
This document from its great length came soon to be known as 
■Magna Carta, or the Great Charter. Later ages have based its 
greatness on other qualities than its mere size. The Great Charter 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY i8l 

has always since been looked upon as one of the most notable 
documents of history. It has at least four claims to importance. 
The way in which it was obtained was significant. It was not 
given willingly and freely by a king who could choose whether to 
grant it or not, and choose just what he would grant. It was 
forced from the king by the people, or by the most influential 
classes of the people, acting unitedly. It showed that if a king 
did not rule as the people wished, he could be made to. 

Secondly, it was important because it saved certain feudal prin- 
ciples of government from being superseded by the principle of 
absolute monarchy. Feudalism included the idea of an agree- 
ment between the king and his vassals that he would give them 
good government if they gave him good service. It was a contract 
which the king had no right to break. There were two parties 
to the bargain of government. On the other hand, the principle 
of the absolute government which Henry II, Richard, and John 
and their ministers had been building up was that government 
was a matter for the king only. The people must accept such 
government as the king chose to give them. The feudal theory 
of contract had been fast disappearing. But it was now revived. 
The Great Charter was an acknowledgment on John's part of the 
old ideal of agreement, and showed that the tenants in chief at 
least had the right as well as the power to call the king to account. 

Thirdly, what it contained was important. It is true that when 
first read the Great Charter is almost sure to be a disappointment. 
There are no new arrangements about government, nothing but a 
return to old customs, for it is not, like the Constitution of the 
United States, for instance, a complete system of government. 
Many of its provisions are also insignificant and temporary. On 
the other hand, it contained a definite agreement to refrain from 
certain illegal actions. Whatever the king granted in the Charter 
to his tenants in chief, they were required to observe toward the 
men below them, and its benefits were therefore spread widely 
through the nation. The king promised also many things of a 



182 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

more general and far-reaching character; as, for instance, the 
famous clauses, " No free man shall be seized or imprisoned or 
dispossessed or outlawed or banished or in any way injured, nor 
will we attack him nor send against him, except by the legal judg- 
ment of his peers or by the law of the land " ; " To no one will we 
sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice." Some of 
these general principles have come down as a part of the general 
stock of English liberties, embodied in many later documents and 
included among the early amendments to the Constitution of the 
United States. Although there is practically nothing about trial by 
jury or representation of the people or about many other valued 
elements in later English liberty, yet the tyranny of the king was 
effectually restricted by the provisions of the Great Charter, so 
that these new rights had a chance to grow up. As a matter of 
fact, the growth of the liberties of the people began with the 
adoption of the Great Charter. 

Lastly, the Charter was of great importance for the service it 
fulfilled in later times as a definite statement of rights to which 
to refer. John declared, a few months after he had granted the 
Charter, that he did not intend to keep it, and he induced the 
pope to declare that it was void because the king had accepted it 
under compulsion. Nevertheless John's son and later successors 
swore time and time again to observe it. It was a great thing to 
have such a large body of the customs and laws of the country 
and such clear promises of good government set down in black 
and white, familiar to everybody and known to have been accepted 
by former kings. In earlier times, when the people appealed to 
the king for good government, they asked for ii the laws of King 
Edward " or " the laws of Henry I" j but these were vague expres- 
sions without very definite meaning. Now a king who violated 
the old laws or showed himself tyrannical was asked to confirm 
the Great Charter and to abide by its provisions. In other 
countries as well as in England the Great Charter exerted an 
influence and was appealed to as a standard of the rights of the 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 183 

people against the kings. It was the earliest mediaeval document 
defining or making any great restriction on royal rights. 1 

154. Summary of the Period from 1154 to 1216. — The most 
characteristic and important occurrences of this period were those 
which prepared the way for the growth of a united English nation. 
These were largely the personal work of Henry II. At this time 
and for centuries afterwards it will be found that the personal 
character of the king is the most important single fact in the his- 
tory of each successive period. The power and influence which 
he possessed and exercised were so great that his ability or incom- 
petency, activity or indolence, prudence or heedlessness, made 
vastly more difference than in a modern monarchy. If he could 
not exercise much influence over the way the people made their 
living, he could give peace and order or else permit anarchy j if 
he could not change their national character, he could throw 
the weight of government in favor of some national tendencies 
and against others; although he could not control the personal 
character of his subjects, he could introduce new laws and dis- 
seminate through his officials his own enlightened ideas. The 
personality of the king is therefore of interest not so much for 
its own sake as for the permanent influence it exerted. 

Henry II even more than most kings left this personal impress 
on his own and future times. The legal and judicial institutions 
which he introduced and the consistent pressure of the central 
government which he enforced did much to weld the English 
people into one body politic. The foundations at least of national 
unity were laid in his time. 

The work of organization had been so well done in the time 
of Henry that the government remained strong even in the slacker 
hands of his two sons. The reign of Richard I, from 1189 to 

1 The Great Charter is translated from the Latin and published in 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6 ; in the Old South Leaflets, No. 6 ; 
in Adams and Stephens's Constitutional Documents, pp. 42-52 ; Lee's Source 
Book, No. 80 ; and in numerous other places. 



1 84 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

1 199, is famous rather for the knightly exploits of the absentee 
king and for the reflected glory which England obtained from them 
than for anything of importance in its internal history. The reign 
of John, from 1199 to 12 16, is preeminently the period of the 
Great Charter. The date of the Great Charter, 12 15, will always 
remain one of the most important in English history, not because 
it weakened the central government but because it took the first 
steps towards putting it under the control of the people. 

The effort of Henry II to bind together his scattered European 
dominions, with no bond of union except his own personality and 
power, was as great a failure as his English policy was a success. 
It had no results beyond his own lifetime. At his death in n 89 
there was no more union among the various states of which he 
was ruler than at his succession, and although during the time of 
Richard they were held together, in 1204, in the reign of John, 
Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine were lost altogether to 
the English crown. 

The effort to bring all the British Isles under one government 
was scarcely more successful. The submission of the Irish chief- 
tains to Henry in 1171, the homage paid to him by the king of 
the Scots in 1 1 75, and the assertion of English lordship over 
Wales were the bases of many later claims, but they did not really 
unite those countries with England. The literary activity also was 
but a temporary reflection from the vigor of Henry's rule. The 
jury system, the assizes, the common law, the overmastering cen- 
tral government remained, therefore, the permanent work of the 
time. 



General Reading. — Green, A. S., Henry //(Twelve English States- 
men); Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets (Epochs of History); and Hall, 
Hubert, Court Life under the Plantagenets, are especially valuable and 
interesting. Green, Short History of England, chap, ii, sects. 7 and 8, chap, 
iii, sects. 1-3. Ramsay, The Angevin Empire, is a continuation of his 
Foitndations of English History, and is, like it, accurate, full, and scholarly. 
Norgate, England under the Angevin Kings vxi&John Lackland. Church 



FOUNDATIONS OF NATIONAL UNITY 185 

affairs, which fill so much of this period, are described in great fullness in 
Stephens, History of the English Church, 1066-1272, and satisfactorily but 
less fully in Wakeman, History of the Church of England, pp. 107-131. 

Contemporary Sources. — The principal chroniclers for this period 
whose works are accessible in English are Roger of Hoveden and Roger 
Wendover, Flowers of History (Bonn's Library). A number of extracts 
from these authors are given in Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 64-79. Lee has a 
number of additional documents illustrating the contest between Henry II 
and Becket, and between John and the pope, Nos. 58, 59, 61, 66-79. Colby, 
Sources, Nos. 22-30, covers a somewhat wider range of subjects. In both 
of these collections as well as in Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6, 
the principal assizes of Henry II, and the Great Charter are given. Adams 
and Stephens, Documents Illustrative of English Constitutional History, 
includes these and a larger body of such documents than any other collec- 
tion. Archer, Crusade of Richard I (English History by Contemporary 
Writers), is of much interest. A number of extracts from Giraldus 
Cambrensis and contemporary accounts of the life of Thomas are given 
in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 88-1 10. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Scott, Ivanhoe and The Talisman. Tennyson, 
Becket. Shakespeare, King John : the historical character of this play is 
not so good as that of those which describe later periods, but it represents 
especially strongly the patriotic spirit of Shakespeare's own time. The 
Rodin Hood Ballads properly belong to this period. A number of these and 
other early ballads are in Gayley and Flaherty, Poetry of the People, and 
in Allingham, The Ballad Book. Yonge, The Constable of the Tower. 
Bulfinch, The Age of Romance, contains many of the stories borrowed from 
Geoffrey of Monmouth. 

Special Topics. — (1) Personal Character of Henry II, Mrs. Green, 
Henry II, pp. 1-20; (2) the Mabinogion, Bulfinch, Age of Romance ; 
(3) the Conference at Runnymede, "Roger of Wendover," year 121 5, in 
Lee, Nos. 77-79, and Green, Short History, chap, hi, sect. 3; (4) Leprosy 
in England, Traill, Social England, Vol. I, pp. 367-37 r ; (5) Trial by Jury, 
ibid., pp. 285-295; (6) Richard in the Holy Land, Archer, The Crtcsade 
of Richard I, pp. 132-175; (7) Henry II and the Clergy, Maitland, Canon 
Law in England, pp. 132-147. 




CHAPTER IX 

THE FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 
1216-1337 

155. Accession of Henry III. — The period that followed the 
grant of the Great Charter was a confused and disorderly one. 
The union of the barons against the king lasted only long enough 
to secure his submission and then it gave way to divisions among 
them. This enabled John not only to revoke the charter he had 
just granted but to collect troops, to gain adherents, and to make 
war on his principal opponents. They in turn united their forces 
again and offered the throne of England to Louis, eldest son of 
the king of France. He accepted the invitation and sent over an 
army to help the barons. In the midst of this struggle, less than 
a year after the grant of the Charter, John died, and his son 
Henry, a boy of nine years of age, was proclaimed king under 
the guidance of the loyal party of the barons. The Great Char- 
ter, with some changes, was regranted by his guardians in his 
name, and soon Louis of France returned home, all contending 
parties having acknowledged Henry as king. 

Henry III had one of the longest reigns in English history, cov- 
ering fifty-six years, from 1216 to 1272. In character and tem- 
perament he was weaker than his predecessors. The kings since 
the Norman Conquest had been men of more than average ability. 
They were all of vigorous nature even when this character was 
accompanied with great vices. Henry III lived a better life as 
a private man and was more refined and kindly than any of the 
preceding kings ; but he had no military ambition or capacity, no 
independence of judgment, no clear policy. He was, moreover, 

186 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 187 

weak, frivolous, unwise, and false to his promises. His influence 
over events during his long reign was therefore very slight. 

156. Architecture. — As a matter of fact the changes which 
were in progress in England in the thirteenth century were of a 
kind in which the part even of the most vigorous and ambitious of 
kings could be but small. In architecture, which usually reflects 
national life very clearly, this was the period of the introduction 
of the first truly national style of English building, that which is 
called Early English. In building churches and other sacred 
structures, instead of the heavy piers, thick pillars, low round 
arches, and general impression of strength, solidity, and sternness 
which had belonged to the Norman period, the English architects 
through the reign of Richard and John developed a very different 
style of building and ornament. 1 In this form of architecture the 
pillars are made up of groups of light, airy shafts ; the arches are 
tall and pointed ; while vaulted stone roofs take the place of those 
built flat and of timber. Crockets, a sort of half-unrolled leaf 
form, were used along the arches, and other flower and leaf forms 
took the place of the lozenges and zigzags of the earlier sculptors. 
The whole character of the buildings and their ornamentation was 
tall, graceful, slender, and elegant. 

Nevertheless the skill of the builders was such that there had 
been no real loss of strength with this increase of lightness of 
appearance. The Early English buildings were even more strong 
and permanent than the Norman. Salisbury Cathedral was built 
in the middle of the reign of- Henry III, between 1220 and 1258, 
and is an example throughout of this Early English style. The 
king pulled down almost the whole of the earlier Westminster 
Abbey church, and built it anew on a larger scale. In this re- 
construction, however, as in everything else which Henry did, he 
submitted himself to French influence, and the proportions of the 
Abbey are therefore hardly characteristic of the English church 

1 Compare the figure of Salisbury Cathedral shown on the next page 
with that of the interior of Hereford Cathedral shown on page 142. 



i88 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



building of the time, though the building is so in other respects. 
The beautiful chapter house at Westminster became the model 
for many such structures throughout England. 

In the building of castles there were no such great changes. 
The keeps were now sometimes built round instead of square, 
and were surrounded by more extensive walls, but the great ad- 
vance in castle building that was to mark 
the close of the thirteenth century and 
to give rise to such fortresses as Conway 
or Carnarvon, whose ruins are now so 
impressive, had not yet come. 

157. The Uni- 
versities. — The 
life of this period 
did not run so 
largely in military 
as in more peace- 
ful lines. A proof 
of this is to be 
found in the rapid 
growth of the uni- 
versities of Oxford 
and Cambridge. 
During the earlier 
middle ages 
instruction was 
given to pupils at most of the cathedrals and larger monasteries. 
Education was in the main a survival from the teaching of the 
schools of the later Roman Empire, and had been reintroduced 
into England from the continent along with Christianity dur- 
ing the Saxon period. It was altogether in the hands of the 
clergy, and was intended principally for the training of clergymen. 
Pupils were taught, besides reading and writing, three primary sub- 
jects of study : grammar, the use of words ; rhetoric, the forms of 




Salisbury Cathedral (an example of the Early 
English style of architecture) 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 189 

writing and speech; and logic, the forms of reasoning. These 
three subjects were called the trivium. Four more advanced sub- 
jects made up the quadrivium, that is to say, arithmetic, geometry, 
astronomy, and the science of music. These were known as the 
seven liberal arts, and lay at the basis of further studies in phi- 
losophy, divinity, law, and medicine. Teachers became famous 
at certain cathedral or monastic schools, and large numbers of 
pupils gathered around them. In certain places also, quite inde- 
pendent of cathedral or monastery, teachers gave instruction, 
made reputations, and attracted students. 

In this way the beginnings of the great universities of Oxford 
and Cambridge seem to have been made. As early as 11 50 there 
were many teachers and students at Oxford. These teachers or 
masters adopted some sort of organization among themselves, 
and it was to this group of masters that the word universitas or 
" university " x was applied. In King John's time a special offi- 
cial, the chancellor, was appointed to exercise authority over 
the masters and scholars at Oxford in the name of the bishop 
of Lincoln, in whose diocese the city lay. At about the same 
time a similar body of masters and scholars was springing up at 
Cambridge. From these beginnings the organization gradually 
developed, statutes came to be regularly adopted and recorded, 
officers elected, rules enforced, and the university assumed defi- 
nite form. 

The next step was the foundation of separate colleges in the 
universities. In 1274 Walter of Merton, bishop of Rochester and 
chancellor of the kingdom, gave certain estates as an endowment 
for the support of a warden and several scholars or fellows. He 
laid down a set of rules, according to which they were to devote 
themselves to study and to live together like a body of monks in a 

1 At first the word universitas meant any kind of an organized body or 
group of persons, and was applied frequently to the merchants of a town or 
to the clergy of a cathedral. It was, however, gradually restricted in meaning 
to a body of persons organized for purposes of higher study and teaching. 



IQO A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

certain group of buildings which was erected for them at Oxford. 
In these buildings other students were also to be educated, and 
some were to be supported from the endowment. This was the 
first separate college within the university. Soon others were 
established. Merton served as the model on which Oriel and 
other new colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge were planned. 
At Oxford three were founded before the end of the thirteenth 
century, and nine during the fourteenth. Nevertheless the great 
majority of students continued to live not in colleges but in halls 
or inns managed by independent masters, or simply in lodgings. 
Taken as a body the students at the universities made up a tur- 
bulent mass of several thousand men and boys of all ages, with 
very little discipline or order. They were claimed by the church as 
belonging to the clergy and therefore only amenable to the eccle- 
siastical courts. For all matters except the most serious they 
were nominally under the authority of the chancellor of the uni- 
versity and the congregation of masters or graduates. As a matter 
of fact they were but little submissive to any authority. The 
universal use of Latin by scholars both for speaking and writing 
made it easy and common for students to go from one country 
to another to study, and the absence of any fixed period for 
graduation left the student to wander at will over Europe, seek- 
ing a teacher or teachers whose reputation might attract him. 

158. Learned Men. — There was no lack of famous scholars. 
Gathered around the universities and in the position of bishops 
or other church officials were at this time a large number of 
unusually learned men. The thirteenth century was a century of 
great men in England, as it was in other countries. At no time 
previously, during the middle ages, and scarcely since, have men 
thought in many fields more deeply or reasoned more closely. 
Indeed, many of the men who made the continental universities 
famous came from England. Roger Bacon and a number of other 
learned Englishmen made a group of Oxford trained men, all of 
whom afterwards became famous as lecturers at Paris, Bologna, 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 191 



or other European universities. One of the greatest of them, how- 
ever, Robert Grosseteste, as head of one of the schools at Oxford, 
as bishop of Lincoln, and as adviser of the great men of the 
kingdom, lived the whole of a long life and exercised great influ- 
ence in England itself. 

159. Law Writers. — All the learned men of the time were not, 
like those who have just been mentioned, students of philoso- 
phy or theology, connected with the universities, or even princi- 
pally occupied in the church. For instance, the greatest of the 
early English law writers, Henry de Bracton, wrote during 




Quadrangle of Oriel College, Oxford 



the reign of Henry III. He acted for many years as one of the 
king's justices, collected a vast number of decisions given by the 
great royal judges of the time of Henry II, and made notes of his 
own important and typical cases. He then used these as authori- 
ties for his conclusions as to what the common law of England 
really was. At the same time he had studied Roman law and the 
discussions of its principles by the law lecturers and writers of the 
University of Bologna, so that he was familiar with the forms into 
which that body of law had been thrown. With this preparation 
he wrote a long work, borrowing some general principles as well 
as its form from foreign treatises, but making it a systematic 



192 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

statement of the English common law as it was then and as in 
the main it has remained since. Still other works were written 
at about the same time, describing the procedure and customs 
of the lower courts. 

160. The Historians. — The thirteenth century also saw abler 
chroniclers than any that had preceded them. The new group 
of historical writers who had sprung up in the reign of Henry II 
was continued by men who knew better how to classify the events 
they recorded, and to tell the causes and effects of actions as 
well as the occurrences themselves. The best of these were the 
successive annalists who lived and wrote at the monastery of 
St. Albans, a Benedictine abbey situated about twenty miles from 
London. This abbey had been founded before the time of Alfred, 
and had become larger and richer since the Norman Conquest. 
It was on the old Roman road running northward from London, 
which was still the main line of travel between the south and the 
north, and was therefore well situated for news of what was going 
on in the world. Here a record of current events was kept, as 
in so many other monasteries, and some industrious or ambitious 
chronicler prefixed to it an account of earlier history from the 
creation of the world, drawn from some other sources. During 
the early part of the thirteenth century Roger of Wendover became 
the historiographer of the abbey, rewrote the earlier chronicle, 
added to it the events of his own time, and called his work the 
Flowers of Histories. 

His successor, Matthew Paris, was the best of mediaeval writers 
of history. He used the writings of his predecessors at St. Albans 
for earlier periods, but wrote the history of his own time — the 
twenty-five middle years of the reign of Henry III and of the 
thirteenth century — independently. His work was of course in 
Latin. That part of it which was written by himself was about 
three times the length of this text-book. He was personally 
acquainted with King Henry, Bishop Robert Grosseteste, and 
many of the other leading men of the time, and evidently knew 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 193 



a great deal of what was going on in France, Germany, and Italy. 
His style is bright, and he is full of keen observations about the 
things of which he wrote. 

161. The Scriptorium of a Monastery. — The historiographer 
of a large monastery was provided with a special room, known as 
the scriptorium, where he and his assistants worked. This room 
was provided with desks or tables, and an official in charge kept 




Remains of the Scriptorium of Fountains Abbey 

parchment, ink, and pens for a group of monks or other clerks 
who were busied with much copying or writing. The keeping of 
the official chronicle was only a small part of the work done. 
Charters and letters were written or transcribed, service books 
for the chapel, portions of the Bible and other religious books 
were copied, and transcripts of the classics and of other famous 
writings were prepared, to be used as presents for great men or 
to be placed in the monastery library. 



194 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



In those times, before printing was invented, the multiplying of 
hooks required many hands, and skill in clear, ornamental hand- 
writing brought a high reputation. Some of the writers in the 
scriptorium, therefore, copied the main body of the manuscript, 
while the initial letters and other ornamentation was left for 
persons skilled in drawing and in the use of gilt and colors. 
Matthew Paris had a reputation for illustration and handwriting 
as well as for his historical work. 1 

162. The Friars. — The monasteries, which were in this way 
literary centers, were either old Benedictine abbeys, or Cluniac, 
Carthusian, and Cistercian reformed monasteries founded in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the reign of Henry III a 
new group of religious orders arose, and members of them soon 
made their way into England. These were the Dominican, 
Franciscan, and other friars. 2 The first two were founded by 
St. Dominic, a Spaniard, and St. Francis of Assisi, an Italian, just 
at the beginning of the thirteenth century. They differed radi- 
cally in their objects and in their methods of life from the older 
monastic bodies. Their main duty was missionary work. Their 
vows required them to visit and help the poor and to teach and 
preach to those who needed intellectual and spiritual rather than 
material help. They were not to live retired from the world in 
monasteries, nor to draw their support from endowments of land, 
like the older orders, but were to establish their houses in populous 
towns, and laboring there or traveling from one town to another, 
depend on the free gifts of the people for their support from 
day to day. They were therefore called " mendicants," or " beg- 
ging friars." The Dominicans were also called the " preaching 
friars," or, from the color of their gowns, the "black friars." The 
Franciscans were known as the " friars minor " from the humility 
they professed, or the "gray friars" from their gray robes. 

1 See on p. 165 an example from a manuscript still existing. 

2 So called from the French word frtres, or Latin fratres, brothers, which 
was what the members of these orders called themselves. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 195 

Another similar order, the Carmelites, were known as the " white 
friars," and still another body as the "Austin" or " Augustinian 
friars " because they followed the rule of St. Augustine. 

The Dominicans and Franciscans established their first homes in 
England at Oxford, just at the beginning of the reign of Henry III. 
There they were drawn, both by their location and by the objects 
of the foundation of their orders, into higher teaching, as well as 
into popular instruction, preaching, and charitable work among the 
poor. Their Oxford and later their Cambridge houses were prac- 
tically equivalent to colleges in those universities, and many of the 
most famous teachers and learned men of the time, including 
several of those already named, and more than one archbishop of 
Canterbury, were members of one or other of the orders of friars. 
They paid especial attention to medicine and physical science, 
as the training of their own younger members was intended to fit 
them especially for practical usefulness in mission work . 

Prominent as the friars were in the educational and learned 
world, they were most active as popular preachers, wandering 
from place to place, speaking in the language of the common 
people, and telling pathetic, humorous, or marvelous stories to 
enforce their teaching. They worked often amidst still more 
obscure surroundings, in the crowded towns, like the Salvation 
Army of modern times. 

163. The Towns. — The need for the philanthropic work of the 
friars is only one of several indications that town life was coming 
to be more customary among the English people than it had been 
in earlier times. At no time since Britain had been a province of 
the Roman Empire had any considerable part of the people lived 
in cities or boroughs. 1 Only quite late in Saxon times, and prin- 
cipally where there were many Danish traders, did people feel 
attracted to town life. The Norman Conquest seemed at first 

1 A town which was the seat of a bishop, that is, where a cathedral 
was situated, was called a city ; any other considerable town in England 
was called a borough. 



196 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

unfavorable to the size and prosperity of towns, for right in the 
midst of many of them the Conqueror had hundreds of houses 
torn down in order to put up the stone castle in which he wished 
to place soldiers to keep the people of the remainder of the town 
and the surrounding country from rebellion. There are only too 
many such entries as the following in Domesday Book, which 
describes Oxford in 1085 : " In this town there are four hundred 
and seventy-eight houses so wasted and destroyed that they cannot 
pay any tax." However, houses of the Norman time were easily 
replaced, being only slight affairs, built with a light framework 
plastered over on the outside. We find one townsman complain- 
ing that the constable of the castle has taken his house and moved 
it into the castle yard ; and an old law says that if any one has 
harbored heretics in his house, it is to be carried outside the town 
and burned. The timber-built houses came later, and stone houses 
later still. 

The security from foreign invasion and the comparative good 
order kept by the Norman and Angevin kings gave an oppor- 
tunity for towns to become more numerous and populous. Many 
foreigners of greater skill in trade and handicrafts than the English 
came to dwell in the towns and to increase their wealth and enter- 
prise. Their growth was of course mainly dependent on this exten- 
sion of trade and handicraft. The townspeople still had their cattle 
and small bits of cultivated land beyond the built-up streets, but 
their principal occupation was either buying and selling, or making 
articles for sale. Those places which were situated on some good 
harbor on the coast or on some navigable river within easy reach 
of the sea came to have trade with the merchants of the continent. 
Towns grew up likewise at well-known fords over rivers, at favor- 
able locations on the old Roman roads, or where some monastery 
rich in sacred relics brought crowds of pilgrims together and thus 
made a market for goods. The greater activity of life, the increase 
of wealth, and the more frequent intercourse among men passing 
from one place to another for purposes of trade, all favored the 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 197 



growth of the towns of England during the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. 

164. Town Charters. — Some of these towns had always been 
directly under the king. Others, in the feudal organization of the 
country, were growing up on land belonging to some earl, baron, 
or church body. Customs grew up among the people of a town, 
which they valued and felt to be necessary to their prosperity. 
They found also that their money could obtain for them from the 



mi 




&pw'0** "^Yftifflm 







Old Town Hall of Leicester 

king or their other lord, whoever he might be, recognition of their 
customs, and still other advantages in the way of settling their own 
internal disputes without interference, or of carrying on their gov- 
ernment in their own way. The need of Henry II for money 
to carry on his wars on the continent, of Richard for his crusade, 
and of John and Henry III for their various uses led them to grant 
charters to towns very readily when good sums were offered. 
And the townsmen were now rich enough to pay well for their 
privileges. Thus one after another the towns obtained charters, 
guaranteeing to their citizens the right to enforce their local 



198 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

customs, to make new regulations, to pay their taxes in one sum 
to the government, collecting them among themselves as they saw 
fit, and many other privileges. A town valued its charter above 
all things, and from time to time offered and paid to the king a 
large sum of money to obtain a new charter with more extensive 
rights. Nevertheless, the townsmen always had to appear before 
the king's justices when they came on circuit, to keep the assize 
of arms and other such national laws, and in other ways constantly 
to recognize the supremacy of the royal government. 

The towns were mostly small. London was a large city, but 
others, such as Bristol, Southampton, Exeter, Leicester, Norwich, 
Lynn, Lincoln, and York, were places with not over three or four 
thousand inhabitants. Surrounded by walls, crowded, and often 
dirty, they were nevertheless busy and filled with well-to-do traders. 

165. The Gild Merchant. — The citizens were organized for trade 
purposes into what was called the gild merchant. This organiza- 
tion consisted of all those who took part in trade, and was usually 
authorized by the town charter. The gild made rules to preserve 
the trade of the town to its own citizens, or to grant it to strangers 
on payment of fees or tolls, and it enforced its trade regulations 
by fines or by expulsion. All trade and commerce was in this way 
controlled and directed by the gild merchant. It had its meetings 
for good fellowship also, and made charitable contributions not 
only to its own members who fell into misfortune but to others. 

166. Craft Gilds. — Later in the thirteenth century the gild mer- 
chant became of less importance, and in its place in each town a 
number of organizations came into existence made up of the men 
working in each particular kind of industry, such as weavers, 
dyers, carpenters, leather workers, etc. Most of these bodies had 
received the authorization for their existence from the authorities 
of their towns, although some had secured charters * directly from 

1 A charter was a formal document granted by the king or in the king's 
name by the chancellor or some other official, giving a right to the persons 
receiving it to do something or to hold certain powers and privileges which 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 199 

the king. These companies, fraternities, crafts, or craft gilds, as 
they were variously called, had the oversight of each particular 
occupation, and included all who worked at it in that town. 
They made rules for work and prosecuted before the town author- 
ities those who violated them. Like the gild merchant they had 
their social and religious side, holding meetings and banquets, 
going to church in procession, attending the funeral services of 
their deceased members, looking after their widows and orphans, 
and in other ways serving as brotherhoods as well as trade organi- 
zations. Probably far the greater number of the inhabitants of 
the towns were members of some such organization. 1 

167. Fairs. — Much of the buying and selling of the country 
was done not in the towns but at the fairs. The fairs were gather- 
ings held at various places yearly or oftener. The right to hold 
a fair was dependent on a charter which had been granted by the 
king to an abbey, bishop, baron, or even a town government. The 
bishop of Winchester, for instance, had a charter granted to him 
by William II, allowing him to hold a fair every year, lasting two 
weeks. It was held on a hill not far from the town of Winchester. 
Booths or wooden shops were put up and rented to merchants, 
who came from different parts of England and from other countries 
to buy and sell. Tolls were charged by the bishop on everything 
that changed hands. While it was being held, nothing except 
food could be bought or sold in the city of Winchester itself or 
for several miles around. 

they could not have except by this grant from the government. A baron's 
right to try and to punish his tenants ; the right of a town to have a court of 
its own, to collect its own taxes, or to exclude strangers from trading in its 
markets; and the right of the carpenters, weavers, or bakers of a town to 
have a separate organization and powers, were only a few instances of the 
many forms of royal charters constantly being granted. A substantial fee 
was usually paid to the government for the privilege of obtaining a charter, 
and it had to be renewed frequently and a new fee paid. 

1 Some charters of towns, and rules of merchant and craft gilds, can be 
found in Translations and Reprints, Vol. II, No. 1, " Towns and Gilds." 



200 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The bishop's officers held a court at the fair for the immediate 
settlement of disputes that broke out among the merchants, and 
for the punishment of offenses committed there. This was called 
a court of " pie-powder," which was an English mispronunciation 
of the French words pied poudre, "dusty foot." The court was 
so called because of the promptitude of its action. Men might 
come to it just as they were, without even stopping to brush the 
dust from their shoes. There were six or eight fairs in England 
as famous as that of Winchester, and several hundred of lesser 
importance, many of them being held in mere villages and only 
for the sale of live stock or of some special article. More than 
a hundred charters for fairs were granted in King John's time, and 
more than two hundred in the time of Henry III. 

168. Country Villages. — The great mass of the people of Eng- 
land, however, knew nothing about either fairs or town life. They 
lived, as they had lived for centuries, in small villages in the 
country. Most of them are described in the records of the time 




Plowing in the Thirteenth Century (copied from a manuscript) 

as either villeins or cotters. The cotters were laborers who 
occupied cottages in the village, each perhaps also having an 
acre or two of land, or even less, somewhere near the village. 
The villeins made up the great body of the ordinary villagers. 
They were small farmers, having their land in the fields sur- 
rounding the village and living probably much as they had done 
in Saxon and in still earlier times. The ordinary villein seldom 
had less than ten or more than thirty or forty acres of land. 
This was quite as much as he could, with the aid of his family, 
attend to, in addition to his performance of the services required 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 201 

by the landlord, for each village and its surrounding fields were 
subject to certain rights of ownership of some " lord of the manor." 
The lord of the manor might be a noble or knight or other sub- 
stantial landholder, a monastery or bishopric or college, or it 
might be the king himself. Much of the land in each vill 1 
belonged directly to the lord of the manor. This land was called 
the demesne, and although scattered about in separate pieces in 
the open fields surrounding the village, was carried on as one 
large farm, the produce going directly to the lord of the manor. 
The cotters and villeins were bound to furnish an amount of 
labor which was generally sufficient to cultivate the demesne 
without cost to the lord of the manor. Each cotter had usually 
to devote one day's labor in each week, and each villein three 
or four days to working on the lord's land, for which labor they 
received no pay. At certain seasons of the year they had also to 
do much extra plowing, harvesting, threshing, and hauling for the 
lord of the manor. 

In addition to these labor services the villeins and cotters had 
also to make payments to the lord in money and in kind. They 
had also to attend the court, which the lords of the manors kept 
up, and to submit to the decisions given and fines imposed there. 
The manor court met every few weeks under the presidency of 
the lord's steward, settled various kinds of suits, and punished 
offenses of the tenants of the manor. 2 

169. Serfdom. — The villeins and cotters were bound to stay 
upon the manor, or to leave it only on being given permission by 
the lord of the manor. The land which they held was, at least 

1 " Village," or " vill " (Latin villa), and " manor " meant practicilly the 
same thing at this time, although the word manor is generally used when 
the rights of the lord over it are being discussed, vill when the people and 
their land are referred to. 

2 Instances of the services required from villeins, of the amounts of land 
they held, and of the proceedings of the manor courts can be found in 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. Ill, No. 5, " Manorial Documents." 



202 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

nominally, the property of the lord. In the eyes of the common 
law they were not free men but serfs. They could not have their 
suits heard in the hundred or shire courts or in the courts of the 
king, but only in the manor courts of their lords. They were 
bound to do what the lord or his representatives required them to 
do on the days when custom required them to work for him. 
Villeinage or serfdom consisted of a group of burdensome require- 
ments, including both the payment of money and the performance 
of services, of limitations on a man's freedom to come and go when 
and where he chose, of a general uncertainty as to his title to his 
property, and of exclusion from the protection given by the public 
courts of the country. Probably two thirds of the whole popu- 
lation of England in the thirteenth century were in this position 
of serfdom. The rest were either citizens of towns, churchmen, 
lords of manors, or the common freemen of the country. 

170. Freemen. — These freemen lived in the villages, along with 
the villeins and cotters already described. Like them they were 
tenants of the lord of the manor, holding their land from him. 
They were also subject to many of the same payments as the 
villeins. They were often required also to attend the manor 
court. Those who had small holdings must have shared much 
of the village life of villeins and cotters. On the other hand, 
every freeman could dispose of his land and leave the manor if 
he chose ; he could bring his suits into the king's court instead 
of that of the manor if he wished to ; he was independent of the 
lord of the manor in regard to everything except his land ; he 
was not burdened with the payment of servile dues ; and, above 
all, in the eyes of the law he was free. He was not free because 
he had more land than the villeins, but because he belonged to a 
different class. Some freemen probably held even less land than 
some of the villeins, though usually they held more. It was these 
freemen or freeholders in the country, along with the citizens of 
the towns, who had to be ready for military service according 
to the Assize of Arms, who had to form the juries to accuse 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 203 

criminals according to the Assize of Clarendon, who formed 
the greater number of the suitors in the king's courts, and the 
greater number of substantial taxpayers. They made the rank 
and file of the nation in the eyes of the government. The villeins 
and cotters, although they made a majority of the population, were 
looked upon as in a certain sense the property of the lords of the 
manors, and were not taken much account of by the government. 

If a freeman had as much land as would bring him in an income 
of twenty pounds a year, he must by law become a knight ; that is, 
he must either be dubbed a knight or at least pay feudal services 
for his land and in other ways do the services expected from a 
knight. 1 The class of freemen in this way led up from those who 
were scarcely distinguishable from villeins to the feudal and noble 
classes, with scarcely a break anywhere between. It was one of 
the striking characteristics of the English nation that the different 
classes shaded into one another, from the peasantry all the way 
up to the barons and earls. 

171. Written Records. — The thirteenth century was in peace- 
ful matters one of the greatest centuries in English history. The 
long reign of Henry III was a period in which architecture, learn- 
ing, education, law, trade, and many other occupations and 
interests were advancing rapidly and taking the form w T hich gave 
shape to much of later history. Our knowledge of the period is 
likewise greater than of any earlier time. We are no longer 
dependent on the chronicles and royal charters alone for our 
information about contemporary events or conditions. Early in 
the thirteenth century, that is to say in the reigns of John and 
Henry III, it became customary for very many more records to 
be kept. Each branch of the royal court kept a record of its 
decisions ; charters granted in the name of the king were recorded 

1 This requirement was known as " distraint of knighthood." An income 
of twenty pounds a year would probably mean that a man had at least four 
or five hundred acres of land. He would therefore in most cases be the 
holder of a whole manor. 



204 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

on the " patent rolls " ; the bishops began to keep written registers 
of their business ; and the stewards of the manor courts kept rolls 
of the doings at their meetings. Lords of manors from time to 
time drew up surveys giving the names and services of all their 
tenants. Many town documents and gild records dating from 
this period give an insight into that side of life. The bulk of 
documents still existing from the thirteenth century is enormous ; 
and such study as has yet been devoted to them gives us a much 
clearer picture of those times than is possible for any earlier 
period. 

172. Reign of Henry III. — The personal history of the king 
and the political events of this period were very troubled. The 
unpopularity of Henry III after he grew to be a man, which has 
been referred to before, was due largely to two things, — his habit 
of choosing foreigners as advisers and officeholders, and his sub- 
servience to the pope. 

Most of the barons could now fairly enough be called English- 
men. Since the loss of Normandy and Anjou they had estates 
in England only, and their interests were necessarily at home. 
Men whose ancestors had been born and had lived on English 
soil for several generations felt that they were natives of the 
country, even if their forefathers had gotten it by conquest and 
even if they still usually spoke a language different from the 
native language of the country. 

173. Foreign Favorites of the King. — The men to whom 
Henry gave his confidence were, on the other hand, recent 
immigrants from Poitou and other districts of France. Peter, 
a Poitevin, who had been made bishop of Winchester and at 
one time chancellor, was for a long time the principal adviser of 
the king, and used his influence for the protection of foreigners 
and their appointment to office. The king's marriage with Eleanor 
of Provence brought the relatives of the new queen and their 
dependents flocking from that country into England, expecting 
and obtaining high offices in church and state, titles and grants 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 205 

of royal land. Among these Boniface of Savoy, the queen's uncle, 
became archbishop of Canterbury. When Henry's liberality to 
foreigners became known a similar invasion of the relatives of 
his mother by her second marriage came from Poitcu and were 
similarly welcomed. 

England was becoming a rich country, but its people were 
behind those of the continent in quickness of mind and business 
ability. Many of the foreigners who sought Henry's patronage 
had much shrewdness and skill in money matters. They had 
better ways of borrowing, buying, and bookkeeping. They were 
also brighter in conversation, more polished in manners, and more 
familiar with literature than Englishmen. Over the king, with his 
intellectual but easy-going and pleasure-loving disposition, they 
had therefore great influence. By the English nobles and church- 
men whom they displaced in position and influence, on the other 
hand, they were heartily disliked. 

The English nation as a whole had even better grounds of 
complaint against them. Through their influence the king was 
led into great expenditures which were not of national interest or 
benefit. The foreign clerks and officers were skillful in borrowing 
nioney, in buying things that pleased the king, and in making the 
necessary arrangements for the collection of taxes and the trans- 
mission of money abroad ; but in the long run the English people 
paid all the bills. This was the more hateful because the expenses 
had been incurred not through the ministers but through the 
mere clerks whom the king employed. 

174. Henry's Relations with the Pope. — The popes of this 
period were unusually able and ambitious men. Innocent III was 
successful in the long struggle with John ; he had been earlier 
engaged in a similar contest with the king of France, and was 
concerned in the political affairs of most of the countries of 
Europe. Those who followed him were strong popes, who kept 
up a long contest with the German emperors and finally humbled 
them and obtained their desires. The dependence of England 



206 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

on the pope had been increased by John's action, and Henry had 
been under the protection and guidance of papal legates during 
all his early life. It was not strange, therefore, that the pope's 
power in England should be great \ but Henry allowed it to 
increase far beyond what it had ever been before. 

Time and time again during his reign the papal court imposed 
taxes upon the English clergy, and several times it demanded 
large contributions from clergymen and laymen alike towards 
the expense of certain projects carried on by the pope and his 
advisers outside of England. The pope claimed that these proj- 
ects were for the common good of all Christendom, and that 
the Christians of all lands should therefore contribute towards 
them ; but to Englishmen generally they seemed to be largely 
for the private objects of the pope as a man, engaged in personal 
quarrels, or as the ruler of an Italian province carrying out a 
policy which had no interest or importance for Englishmen. King 
Henry was almost alone in England in approving of this taxation 
of Englishmen for papal purposes and by papal collectors. 

175. Papal Representatives in England. — Several times also 
papal legates or ambassadors came into England. One of them, 
Cardinal Otho, 1 came at the invitation of the king and stayed for 
years, engaged in a general reform of the English church, exercis- 
ing high powers and exacting large sums of money for his own 
expenses and for the needs of the pope. The representatives 
who were in England simply for the collection of money were 
still more objectionable and riots sometimes occurred because 
of their exactions. 

1 " Cardinal " is a title of honor given to certain prelates who are the nomi- 
nal holders of the bishoprics and other ecclesiastical positions in the city of 
Rome and its suburbs. Apart from the office which gives them the title 
of cardinal, however, they are usually archbishops or bishops in the various 
countries of Christendom. Their number has varied at different times from 
twenty to seventy. They are the advisers of the pope and the highest 
church officials. On the pope's death they meet in conclave and elect his 
successor from their own number. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 207 

176. Italian Holders of English Church Positions. — As the part 
played by the pope in Europe became a larger one, a great 
number of churchmen connected themselves with the papal court 
at Rome and served as officials of the pope. These he desired 
to reward or support by having them appointed to church posi- 
tions in various countries. At one time he urged Henry to agree 
that no churchman should be appointed to any vacancy that 
should occur till three hundred Italians had been provided with 
English church positions. This practice was opposed by the most 
devout English churchmen as well as by those who were not 
ecclesiastics, but the king made no serious opposition to it. 
Henry also allowed appeals to be taken from the English church 
courts to the papal court without opposition, and paid regularly 
the sum of money which John had agreed to give the pope in 
recognition of his overlordship of England. 

Finally, in 1257, Henry agreed to let the pope grant to Edmund, 
his second son, the kingdom of Sicily, the pope having just declared 
the dethronement of the former king of that country. It would 
require a war, called by the pope a crusade, to drive out the 
former king and place Henry's son in his position, and the Eng- 
lish king agreed to pay the expenses of the war. 

177. Growth of the Power of the Great Council. — The Great 
Council had met throughout the reigns of John and Henry III 
Math greater frequency than in earlier times, and the earls, barons, 
bishops, and abbots who attended it took a larger part in the dis- 
cussions. Gradually the name "parliament" 1 came into use to 
designate the Great Council. By the middle of Henry's reign 
it met almost every year, and sometimes even more often. Many 
of these meetings were occasions for sharp disputes, in some of 
which the king himself took part. The barons frequently refused 

1 From the French word parler, to speak, having reference to its being 
a meeting for speaking or discussion. It had formerly been frequently 
and was still occasionally called by one or other of the terms council, 
convention, colloquy, or convocation. 



208 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the taxes demanded by the king, and complained of his policy and 
bad management of the duties of government and of the finances. 

178. Simon of Montfort, and the Provisions of Oxford. — The 
leader among the barons for many years was Simon of Montfort, 
earl of Leicester. He "was in reality one of those foreign adven- 
turers who had come from France to the English court. His family 
were nobles from the south of France, but through his grandmother 
he inherited the earldom of Leicester in England. When he came 
he succeeded in obtaining the earldom and married the sister of 
the king. Instead of remaining a foreigner, however, he threw 
himself into all the interests and feelings of the English baronage, 
and had much intercourse with the English bishops and abbots, 
especially with those whose national feelings were opposed to the 
constant interference of the pope in English affairs. Little by 
little Earl Simon became the acknowledged leader of the baron- 
age, and over and over again he led their opposition to the king. 

At last, at two successive parliaments held in 1258, the barons, 
led by Simon, took such a decided stand that the king was forced 
to agree to a series of changes by which many reforms were intro- 
duced into the government. Foreigners were to be removed, other 
ministers appointed, various committees of bishops and barons 
authorized to carry out reforms, and a permanent governing 
council of bishops and nobles chosen. This council was to 
control all the actions of the king, appoint ministers and office- 
holders for him, and have possession of the royal castles. These 
arrangements were known as the " Provisions of Oxford," from 
the place where parliament met when they were finally drawn 
up. All concerned, including the king, took an oath to conform 
to the Provisions. 

Henry found the restrictions very hard to endure and tried to 
free himself from the Provisions. When he threatened to revoke 
them Earl Simon and many of the barons armed themselves and 
prepared for civil war. Various efforts at settlement were made. 
At one time the whole dispute was referred to the king of France, 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 209 

Louis IX, or Saint Louis, as he was called. With his high ideas 
of royal power and duty Louis decided all points in favor of Henry 
and annulled the Provisions of Oxford. 1 The barons, however, 
refused to accept this award and war broke out in 1263. The 
king, his son, Prince Edward, and a part of the barons were on 
one side, Earl Simon and another party of the barons, supported 
by the general approval of the nation, were on the other. 

A great battle was fought in 1264 at Lewes in Sussex, where 
the rebellious barons were victorious. The king was captured and 
held in imprisonment by them, while Earl Simon carried on the 
government in the royal name. Next year, however, war broke 
out again. At the battle of Evesham the barons were defeated, 
and the three years of fighting ended with the death of Earl Simon 
and the victory of the king, or rather of his eldest son, Edward. 
The king made some concessions which were announced in 
a parliament. Edward and many of the nobles went away on a 
crusade, and things remained peaceful until the death of Henry 
in 1272, and even during the two years that followed while 
Edward was still absent in the East. 

179. Accession of Edward I. — Edward made his way home- 
ward through Italy and France, visiting the pope and doing 
homage to the king of France for his French dominions on his 
way. He reached England, was crowned in 1274, and reigned 
thirty-five years. The most noteworthy feature of this period was 
its intensely national character. Edward, in striking contrast to 
his father, was strongly English. Along with his old English 
name he had a decided preference for Englishmen and English 
ways. Henry II had looked upon England only as one of a group 
of countries in each of which he had the position of ruler; 
Richard had thought of it merely as a source of money to enable 
him to go on crusade or to live in his other dominions ; Henry III 
had lived most of the time in England, and only occasionally 

1 This decision was known as the " Mise of Amiens," and the wars that 
followed are known as the " Barons' Wars." 



2IO A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

visited his possessions in the south of France, but his intimate 
friends and his personal tastes were all French. In Edward, 
however, the English people at last had a truly national king, 
who loved England ; one whose aim it was to carry, out an Eng- 
lish policy, to make England the center of his interests, and to 
choose Englishmen as ministers of his government. This attitude 
of the king was in harmony with the condition of the country. 
The English were becoming more distinctly a single nation. The 
foreign elements of the population were being absorbed into the 
mass of the people. The days had gone by when foreigners 
ruled over England and when the people were separated into 
different nationalities one superior to the other. The people of 
one region were likewise brought much more into contact with 
those of other parts of the country, and various causes were bring- 
ing classes more into union. 

1 80. Parliament. — One means by which this unity was accom- 
plished was the representative character given to the parliament. 
Judged by its influence in after times on England and on other 
countries the completion of the organization of parliament was 
vastly the most important event of this time. Even during the 
time of Henry III parliaments had become occasions for discuss- 
ing the policy of the government. No great change was intro- 
duced by the king, no important action was undertaken, nor did 
he try to collect any tax without obtaining the agreement of a 
Great Council, that is to say, of parliament. 

The king and his ministers felt that the. general approval of all 
the influential classes of the people was desirable and even neces- 
sary for the successful carrying out of any measure. This approval 
by the influential classes of the nation could be obtained only 
by calling a parliament and consulting with it. In one of his 
proclamations Edward laid down his policy by declaring that 
"that which affects all should be approved by all." 

Who were the "influential classes"? Who were the "all" 
whom the king had in his mind? In earlier times it had been 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 21 1 

simply the nobles and prelates. But a change had come over the 
country. The earls and barons and great churchmen were no 
longer the only people of influence. The number of freemen 
below these ranks who yet had land, money, position, and intelli- 
gence was very great. In the country districts there were many 
knights. There was a still greater number of substantial free- 
holders who held some land but not sufficient to make them of 
knightly rank. These classes represented a large part of the solid 
strength of the country. In the cities and boroughs, which 
had been growing in number and size, there were many rich, 
enterprising, and intelligent merchants. 

181. Introduction of the Middle Classes into Parliament. — If it 
was desirable for the king to obtain the agreement of all the 
important classes of the community to public measures these sub- 
stantial middle classes could hardly be neglected. Especially was 
this so when it came to a question of taxation. Land was no 
longer the only form of wealth in the country. There was a great 
deal of money, of personal property, of wool and similar articles 
raised for export, and of goods brought in from foreign countries. 
Therefore the feudal payments of the barons were only a small 
part of the contributions that might be levied for the purposes 
of the government. All these other forms of property might be 
taxed, and vastly the greater part of them were in the hands of the 
well-to-do middle classes in the country and the towns. There- 
fore from the point of view of taxation these classes were even 
more important than the nobles or the great churchmen. 

The knights and freeholders of the country districts could be 
reached through the county courts, the merchants through the 
town governments, and for some time no better way had been 
found of obtaining their agreement to taxation than for the king's 
justices and exchequer officials to appeal to each county court 
and to the officials of each town directly. This was usually 
done by the justices when they went on circuit. At each county 
court they demanded a certain rate of taxation previously decided 



212 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

upon at a parliament or merely by the king's ordinary council. 
But this was a cumbrous, uncertain, and vexatious process. A 
better one was soon devised. 

182. Representation. — The choice by a large body of a few 
persons to represent them had become a familiar custom in Eng- 
land. In some obscure forms it had been practiced far back in 
Saxon times, but its distinct use was introduced by the govern- 
ment during Norman and Angevin times. According to the 
Assize of Clarendon the accusing jury represented the people 
of a locality, and a trial jury in the same way represented the 
body of neighbors of the person charged with an offense. When 
taxes were to be collected each county court elected representa- 
tives to assess the sum to be paid by each person. During the 
thirteenth century this custom of having all the people of any 
one locality represented by a few was becoming almost universal 
in local affairs. It was not long before the same plan was 
introduced in national affairs. 

This plan was as follows. The king required each county and 
each town to send representatives to the general meetings of par- 
liament so that the agreement of those they represented could be 
obtained at the same time as that of the barons and clergy. Several 
times during the reign of Henry III the county courts were ordered 
to send representatives to parliament; and once, in 1 2 65, x while 
the king was under the control of Simon of Montfort, representa- 
tives of both counties and towns were summoned. The custom 
was not regularly followed, however, and most parliaments con- 
tained only the old classes, — earls, barons, bishops, and abbots. 

1 This date is sometimes spoken of as the " beginning of parliament." It 
is only so in the sense that it was the first time that representatives of both 
the counties and the towns, in addition to the nobles and churchmen, were 
called to attend parliament. Parliament of course was the same as the Great 
Council of the king, and had always existed in one form or another from the 
Anglo-Saxon witenagemot downward. The name parliament, as already 
stated, had been used for the Council for some time before 1265. The new 
classes were not regularly called again after 1265 for some thirty years. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 213 



Edward was a great constitutional reformer. He was not only 
interested in obtaining his own immediate ends and the money 
for the needs of his government, but he was devoted to the work 
of governing for its own sake, and anxious to introduce perma- 
nent arrangements for good government into England. He had 
been as a young man in the thick of his father's contests with the 
barons, and seems to have learned lessons of political wisdom from 
his experiences. During the early part of his reign, therefore, 
he summoned representatives of the towns and county courts 









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V 



Ruins of Chapter-House of Margan Abbey 

repeatedly for consultation, although not according to any invari- 
able plan. Frequently still the barons and clergy only were called 
to a parliament, according to the old custom. 

183. Parliament of 1295. — In 1295, however, a more regular 
system was adopted, which became the standard and model for 
all later parliaments. The king summoned as usual the arch- 
bishops, bishops, greater abbots, earls, and barons, by a special 
letter or writ 1 addressed to each, to come to a parliament to meet 
at Westminster on a certain day. Then a writ was sent to the 

1 A summons issued by the king or in the king's name for such purposes 
as this was called a writ. The wording of the writs sent out in 1295 can be 
found in Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 6. 



214 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

sheriff of each county ordering him to see that two men of the 
rank of knight were elected to represent the whole county, and 
two townsmen to represent each city or borough in that county, 
all of whom were to come to the appointed place to the meeting. 

Thus when this parliament met in the winter of 1295 its 
membership consisted of the two archbishops, eighteen bishops, 
about seventy abbots, seven earls, and forty-one barons ; and in 
addition to these some seventy representatives of the shires and 
some two hundred representatives of the towns. After this time 
all these classes were regularly summoned to parliament. 

184. The Houses of Lords and Commons. — There was much to 
draw the representatives from the shires and those from the towns 
together. Both classes were newcomers in parliament, both were 
elected deputies of other men, both were humble in position com- 
pared with the barons and clergy. Therefore they acted together 
and were frequently treated as one class. They became known 
as the " commons " in parliament. The commons were the repre- 
sentatives of the middle classes, or those next below the nobility 
and higher clergy. 

So far as is known, no regular custom of sitting in parliament 
was followed at first, but as time passed on the difference of posi- 
tion and interests between the older classes in parliament and the 
commons led to the custom of sitting in two different rooms and 
being organized as two separate bodies. 1 These became known as 
the House of Lords, including the nobles and clergy, and the 
House of Commons, including the representatives of the shires 
and the towns. The House of Commons elected a " speaker," 
to represent them in conferences with the king and to preside 
over their meetings. The lord chancellor presided over the House 
of Lords. Each house grew to have somewhat different customs, 
powers, and privileges. 

1 This is often spoken of as the " bicameral system," or system of two 
chambers, and has been imitated in modern times in the United States and 
in most other countries. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 215 

The bishops and abbots sat in parliament not only as great 
churchmen but as representatives of the whole organized church. 
The nobility of England were the earls and barons who were sum- 
moned in person to parliament. The commons were considered 
to represent all the rest of the nation, though of course the great 
mass of the people had no influence in their election or over their 
actions in parliament. 1 

185. Statutes. — Edward was not only a great constitutional 
reformer, but was also a great legislator. His time was a period 
of important lawgivers. Louis IX of France issued many decisive 
statutes and had the feudal law of that country put into formal 
shape. Frederick II of Sicily issued one of the most famous legal 
codes in history, and Alfonso the Wise of Castile did the same 
for his country. All these great lawgiving kings lived within the 
same half century. 

Edward's reign was marked by a series of laws that stand in the 
forefront of the long line of English statutes. Statutes are written 
laws, not simply arising from custom, as the common law, nor 
issued as instructions to royal officials, as were the assizes of 
Henry II, but regularly drawn up and agreed to by both the king 
and his parliament. Almost at the beginning of the statute book 
come a series of long statutes adopted at various times during 
Edward's reign, some of them directed towards single specific 
objects, others including a vast variety of matters. From this 
time onward statutes became more numerous. Edward has some- 
times been called the English Justinian, because like that Roman 
emperor he did so much to develop and codify the laws of the ^^pP 
country. 

186. The Confirmation of the Charters. — There were many 
disputes between Edward and various classes of his subjects, — at 

1 The three classes, lords spiritual, lords temporal, and commons, were 
often called the " three estates " of the realm. The word " estate " is from 
the Latin stare, to stand, or to be established, and therefore means an 
established class. 



2l6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

one time with the baronage, at another time with the clergy, at 
another with the merchants. His government was a strong one 
and often bore so hardly on certain classes of the people as to 
arouse their resistance. " By God, Sir Earl," the king once said 
in an outburst of wrath against the earl of Norfolk, who had 
refused to go outside the realm to fulfill his feudal military service, 
" you shall either go or hang." " By God, Sir King, I shall neither 
go nor hang," was the reply of the haughty nobleman. 

Taxation was none the less heavy because the people were induced 
to agree to it in parliament. Indeed under the pressure of his 
needs Edward was not satisfied with the regular grants of taxes 
made in parliament, but in opposition to the spirit if not the letter 
of the law demanded many other payments from the towns, from 
the merchants, and from the peasantry on the royal estates. 

In 1297 resistance to the king rose so high that advantage was 
taken of his immediate need of money and troops to require him 
to agree to a document solemnly confirming the Great Charter 
and the Forest Charter, 1 and making some additional promises by 
which he gave up all right of taxation except " by the common 
consent of the realm." Although the charters were confirmed 
many times afterward, as they had been before, yet this action has 
been called in a special sense "The Confirmation of the Charters." 
The additional articles now agreed to made it necessary for the 
king to consult parliament before collecting any taxes. Thus that 
body was placed in a position of far greater power than before, 
and, if the " Confirmation " should be faithfully maintained, parlia- 
ment would be enabled to control the king's actions by limiting 
the funds at his disposal. Like all other far-reaching laws, however, 
it was only enforced in part, and kings still found opportunity to 
secure money without a special grant. 

187. The Jews. — One of the best known actions of Edward 
was the banishment of all Jews from England. There do not 

1 The Forest Charter had been issued by Henry III to limit the rigor of 
the forest laws. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 217 

seem to have been any Jews in England in Anglo-Saxon times. 
After the Conquest, however, they came in with other immigrants 
and their numbers had since become large. Their religion set 
them apart from the rest of the population of the country, who 
were all members of the same organized Christian church. Every 
Englishman was considered to belong in some parish and in some 
diocese. Not only his religious interests but his marriage, the 
inheritance of his property, his burial, were matters for the control 
of the church. The whole of ordinary life was conducted on the 
supposition that men were members of the same religious body. 

The Jews did not fit into this framework and so had to live 
a life apart. They were allowed to live only in certain wards 
of the larger towns, which were known as "Jewries." They were 
required also to wear a special dress or a badge of yellow cloth 
on the breast. They were considered to be living in the country 
not by common right but by the special consent of the king and 
under his protection. They were subject, therefore, not to the 
common law but to special regulations made for them by the king 
or his officers. In ordinary life they were to a considerable 
extent under the government of their own leading men. 

The ordinary occupations were closed to the Jews by popular 
hatred and by the religious customs followed by the people in 
these occupations. Jews could not be members of merchant or 
craft gilds in the towns, or farmers in country villages. They were 
of course shut out from the clergy, and generally speaking from 
official positions. On the other hand, they had superior abilities. 
Some were of widespread repute as physicians and many were 
famous for their learning. Their keenness in financial matters 
was a race characteristic and they were the only class who at that 
time had any considerable capital. They were also freed by their 
religion from the universal law binding upon Christians in the 
middle ages prohibiting the lending of money on interest. As 
a consequence the great occupation of the Jews was the unpopular 
trade of money lending. 



2l8 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Unfortunately money was not usually at that time loaned for 
purposes of productive use. Business was all on such a small 
scale that men carried it on by their own labor or with the small 
amount of capital which they themselves possessed. When men 
borrowed money it was merely to free themselves from pressing 
debts or other difficulties, to equip a marauding or crusading 
expedition, to obtain funds necessary to carry on an expensive 
lawsuit, to pay a sudden demand for taxes, or some such unpro- 
ductive use. They were willing therefore to offer, and the Jewish 
money lender was ready to demand, enormous rates of interest. 
When the money was not repaid, as was frequently the case, the 
land or whatever else had been given as a pledge fell to the lender. 
They were also accused of "clipping" the coin, that is, cutting 
thin strips from the edges of the silver coins and selling the metal 
thus obtained. Religious prejudice alone was sufficient to make 
them hated by the ignorant classes of the people, the whole race 
being held responsible for the crucifixion of the Saviour. Stories 
went around that they seized and sacrificed Christian boys in their 
religious services, and that they continually uttered blasphemies 
against Christianity. 

1 88. Royal Protection of the Jews. — The unpopularity of the 
Jews was therefore very great. They lived as an alien element in 
England, subject to a popular dislike which occasionally rose, on 
some sudden rumor, to a wild hatred that led to the sacking of 
the Jewries and the murder of their inhabitants. 

The kings, however, valued the Jews as .a body of men among 
whom there was much wealth which could be drawn on in vari- 
ous ways. They were required to make heavy payments for pro- 
tection and privileges. Regular poll taxes were collected from 
them, and special taxes laid upon them whenever the king felt 
that this could be done without too greatly impoverishing them 
or causing their departure from England. During the time of 
Henry III a more enlightened policy was adopted, many efforts 
being made for their conversion to Christianity and regulations 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 219 

issued for their holding of landed property. A special building 
was erected at London as a dwelling place for poor Jews who 
should become converts to Christianity. Edward at first carried 
this policy still further, imposing upon the friars the special du«.y 
of preaching to the Jews, and offering to each convert the legal 
possession of at least one half of the property which had formerly 
been at the uncontrolled disposal of the king. A law was also 
passed opening all occupations to Jews and allowing them to 
rent land, but at the same time forbidding them to lend money 
on interest. 

189. The Expulsion. — These measures, however, met with 
little success. There was no perceptible change in their habits. 
The wave of popular hatred was rising higher, so in 1290 the 
king issued a proclamation ordering all Jews to quit the kingdom 
before a certain day under pain of death. He allowed them, 
however, to take their goods and money with them, and sent 
royal officers to the ports from which they were to go to protect 
them from the injuries of the people. He even provided free 
passage for the very poor. It is said that 16,511 Jewish emi- 
grants left England at this time. 

190. The Conquest of Wales. — Although Edward both by 
nature and opportunity was inclined to devote his best efforts 
to the problems of government, most of his time, like that of 
every other strong king in the middle ages, was necessarily spent 
in warfare. He was engaged during much of the latter part of 
his reign in a contest with the king of France to retain Gascony, 
the sole remainder of the wreck of the old dominions of the 
English kings in France. His two greatest series of wars, how- 
ever, were with Wales and Scotland. 

The people of Wales had never been completely conquered or 
united with the people of the rest of England. The mountainous 
nature of their country, their fierce character, and their pride in 
their Celtic blood had enabled them to preserve their political 
independence under their native chieftains. The Welsh princes 



220 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

had, it is true, been forced from time to time to acknowledge the 
supremacy of the English king, but it was only a formality, and 
the people of Wales continued to live in practically independent 
barbarism. These half-independent Welsh princes frequently gave 
help to the enemies of the king, whether these enemies were 
rebellious nobles or invading foreigners. They also made fre- 
quent plundering raids into England and in turn suffered from 
similar raids in retaliation by the English nobles on the borders. 1 

Soon after Edward's accession one of these periodical conflicts 
arose under the Welsh prince Llewelyn, and Edward determined 
to settle the Welsh contest once for all. He therefore called a 
parliament and obtained from it a grant of taxes, collected a large 
army, marched into Wales, and, after a desperate struggle, put 
down all- resistance, defeated and killed the prince, and brought 
his judges and Exchequer officials to the border to begin the work 
of transforming Wales into a part of England. He issued a long 
code of regulations known as the " Statute of Wales," which divided 
that country into shires on the model of England and introduced 
English laws and customs. His infant son was given the title 
of "Prince of Wales," which the eldest son of the king has borne 
since that time. 2 The work of conforming Wales to England was 
only partly successful and was accomplished very slowly, but the 
foundation for it had been laid by Edward's expedition. 

191. The Question of the Scottish Succession. — The claims of 
the English kings to supremacy over Scotland were even more 
indefinite and unreal than those over Wales had been. Scotland 
really included two different nations, — the Highlanders, who were 

1 The frontiers between England and Wales and England and Scotland 
were called the " marches," and the nobles who held estates in these 
border districts were called "lords marchers." 

2 According to an old story Edward promised to give to the Welsh 
people as prince a native of Wales and one who could not speak a word of 
English. He then presented to them his infant son who had just been born 
at the Welsh castle of Carnarvon. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 221 

mainly Celtic and lived among the rugged districts of the north, 
and the Lowlanders, who were partly Teutonic, like the north of 
England people, partly Celtic invaders from Ireland. A long 
line of kings had ruled over these various elements without bring- 
ing them together very successfully. From time to time the 
Scottish kings had paid homage to the English kings, acknowl- 
edging a kind of supremacy on their part, but the English kings 
had not interfered in any way with the internal affairs of either 
the Lowlands or the Highlands. 

192. The Award of Norham The ambition of Edward I, 

however, extended so far as to plan for the real union of all 
the island of Britain ; therefore, when the inheritance of the king- 
dom of Scotland descended to a little girl, Edward immediately 




Remains of Carnarvon Castle, Wales, the Birthplace of Edward II 



arranged for her marriage to his eldest son. Unfortunately the 
young queen of Scotland soon died and there was no unquestioned 
heir to the throne. Several Scotch nobles were descended from 
the royal family and claimed the inheritance. Edward was called 
upon to act as arbitrator. In 1292, therefore, he went to the 



222 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

castle of Norham on the border between England and Scotland, 
attended by the nobles of the northern counties of England, to 
meet representatives of the nobility, clergy, and commons of Scot- 
land and to render his decision as to who had the best claim to 
the throne. 

Before he gave his award he demanded that the Scotch should 
all acknowledge his feudal superiority over Scotland and its king. 
This was done somewhat reluctantly by the Scotch representatives 
and claimants for the crown. 

There were three principal competitors, John Baliol, Robert 
Bruce, and John Hastings, each of them descended from the royal 
house of Scotland by the female line, each of them a Lowland 
noble, and each holding estates in the northern part of England 
also. Edward, after full discussion and investigation of documents, 
gave his decision in favor of John Baliol. This nobleman, there- 
fore, was acknowledged by the Scotch representatives, received 
possession of all the Scotch royal castles, and again did homage 
and swore fealty to Edward as his superior lord. 1 

A vigorous national ruler like Edward was not likely to allow 
his supremacy over the king of Scotland to remain the mere 
formality it had previously been. According to his view, Baliol 
held practically the same position toward him for his Scottish 
monarchy as he did for the various lands which he held in Eng- 
land. Scotland, like Wales, was looked upon by Edward as 
simply a feudal lordship held by one of his barons, just as the 
earl of Norfolk, for instance, held his estates. The king of Eng- 
land was supreme over them all' alike. The Scottish king and 

1 The words of Baliol's oath of fealty were as follows : " Hear you. this, 
my lord Edward, king of -England and sovereign lord of the realm of Scot- 
land, that I, John Baliol, king of Scotland, do fealty to you for the realm 
of Scotland, which I hold and claim to hold of you ; that I will be faithful 
and loyal to you, and faith and loyalty will bear to you of life and limb and 
worldly honor, against all who may live and die ; and loyally I will acknowl- 
edge and loyally perform the services that are due to you for the aforesaid 
kingdom of Scotland. So help me God and these holy gospels." 




Scotland in the Thirteenth Century : the Highlands and Lowlands, 
Scottish and English Marches, Lothian, and the Principal Towns 
Castles 

223 



the 
and 



224 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



people, on the other hand, like the Welsh, had been practically 
independent and felt themselves to be a separate nation from the 
English. 

193. The Defeat of Scotland. — Naturally, therefore, disputes 
soon arose, and within a short time the Scots and their king 
were at war with Edward. They were, however, no match for the 

English king with his military 
ability and training, the veteran 
warriors among his nobles, and the 
well-equipped armies he was able 
to bring into Scotland. The Scotch 
king was defeated, deposed, and 
banished, resistance was beaten 
down, and English officials were 
established throughout the coun- 
try. Scotland was treated, accord- 
ing to Edward's views and after the 
example of Wales, as a dependency, 
almost as a part of England. The 
crown and other emblems of royalty 
were taken away to London and the 
" stone of Scone," a square block 
of stone upon which the Scottish 
kings always sat to be crowned, 

was carried to London and fastened under the seat of the English 

coronation chair, where it still remains. 1 

194. William Wallace and the Wars of Scotch Liberation. — 
Scotland was temporarily conquered, but resistance showed itself 




English Coronation Chair 



1 Many old traditions gathered around this stone, among them one that 
it had been brought to Scotland from Ireland, and to Ireland from Egypt by a 
certain daughter of Pharaoh ; and that it had come to Egypt from Palestine, 
where it had been hallowed by being the stone on which the head of Jacob 
had rested when he saw the vision of the angels ascending and descending 
between earth and heaven. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 225 

• 
whenever Edward or an overwhelming English force was not 
present. One of the principal leaders of the opposition among 
the mass of the Scottish people was William Wallace, who has 
stood in later stories as the representative of the Scottish struggle 
for independence, and the great national hero. He was according 
to all traditions a bold, chivalrous, and daring warrior. Most of 
the leaders made their peace by submission to Edward. Wallace 
kept up the struggle, was successful in many a fight, and won 
castle after castle from its English garrison. But he was an out- 
law, with only such volunteers as he could gather around him, 
and after some years, in 1305, he was captured, taken to London, 
tried for treason, and executed. 

Yet the national resistance had been growing steadily ever since 
Edward's first invasion, and notwithstanding his kingly qualities 
a permanent conquest of Scotland became evidently impossible. 
War surged to and fro through the Lowlands and up to the very 
entrance to the Highlands, continually embittering the native 
feeling. In 1306 Robert Bruce, a grandson of one of the earlier 
claimants of the crown, declared himself king, and, making use of 
the growing feeling of nationality, called all classes of Scotsmen to 
arms for a last great struggle. For some time the Scots gained but 
little. Bruce was often a mere fugitive in the mountains, though 
he always returned to the attack. Finally the tide turned. The 
Scots had no longer to contend with the warrior and statesman, 
King Edward I. He died in 1307, as he was about to enter Scot- 
land with a new and still more powerful army. With his last breath 
he enjoined upon his son and successor, Edward II, the com- 
pletion of the conquest of Scotland. Edward II, however, was 
unwarlike and indolent, and followed up the contest with little 
vigor or interest. A series of partial successes gave the Scots 
command of most of the Lowland cities, castles, and fortresses, 
and Bruce finally laid close siege to Stirling, one of the last and 
strongest of the English strongholds. The English brought a 
fresh army into Scotland to its rescue, and in 13 14, near Stirling 



226 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Castle, was fought the decisive battle of Bannockburn. The Scots, 
drawn up in solid squares and masses of men, resisted the first 
attacks of the English, threw them into confusion, and then over- 
whelmed them and won a brilliant victory. Bruce had at last 
succeeded in making good his position and he soon obtained the 
recognition of Scotland as a kingdom independent of England. 

The feelings of hostility engendered by this contest gave rise 
afterward to almost interminable border warfare between England 




and Scotland. Bodies of 
raiders continually passed 
from the English side of the 
border over into Scotland, or 
from the Scotch side over 
into England, burning houses, 
destroying crops, seizing cattle, plundering villages, and killing 
people. The plan of Edward I had been to create a single, 
united, well-governed nation including the whole of the island of 
Britain, but this had failed. The national desire of the Welsh 
and Scotch for independence, as well as their state of barbarism 
and their different interests, could not be overcome and made the 
plan impracticable. 

When Edward I died in 1307 he was sixty-nine years of age, 
having reigned thirty-five years. He was one of the greatest of 
English kings and, notwithstanding the failure of his " imperial- 
istic " plans, he left a deep impression upon the history of England. 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 227 

195. Edward II. — Edward II was, on the other hand, of 
comparatively insignificant character and exercised little influence 
upon history. During his reign of twenty years he was alter- 
nately under the guidance of favorite friends and ministers and 
the control of rebellious parties of barons. In 13 10 a great 
meeting of the nobles and prelates, much like the gatherings that 
forced the Great Charter on King John in 12 15 and imposed the 
Provisions of Oxford on Henry III in 1258, forced Edward to put 
the work of reforming the government into the hands of a group 
of twenty-one nobles, who were known as the " Lords Ordainers." 
The Ordainers drew up a long series of ordinances introdu- 
cing various reforms and banishing the king's favorite ministers. 
Edward's efforts for the rest of his reign were largely devoted to 
freeing himself from the ordinances, while the barons repeatedly 
rose in rebellion to enforce them. 

During the last of these revolts, which occurred in 1327 and was 
directed in the first place against the king's favorites rather than 
against the king himself, Edward was captured and imprisoned. 
Under the influence of his opponents a parliament was called 
and a bill passed declaring the king incompetent and guilty of 
many offenses. He was therefore formally declared to be deposed 
from the throne. He died soon afterward, having doubtless been 
murdered. 

196. The Minority of Edward III. — Edward III, a boy thir- 
teen years of age, was placed on the throne when his father was 
deposed. During his minority and the early years of his reign 
there are no great matters to chronicle. But beginning with the 
year 1337 a series of events of much greater importance took 
place, which will be described in the succeeding chapter. 

197. Summary of the Period from 1216 to 1337. — The great 
permanent change which occurred during the period included in 
this chapter was the consolidation of the English people into one 
well-defined race. For a time after the Norman Conquest there 
were two distinct peoples in England, — English and Norman; 



228 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

but the process of union by intermarriage began early, and the 
distinction between the races was gradually broken down. Within 
a hundred years of the Conquest it was often impossible to tell 
whether a man was English or Norman. All men except the 
villeins, who were mostly pure English, were apt to be part 
English, part Norman. This process of union of races had now 
become complete. 

The different customs of government of Saxons and Normans 
were also coalescing and combining to form new national insti- 
tutions. For instance, the old Anglo-Saxon division of the country 
into shires and hundreds and the new Norman and Angevin royal 
ministers and officials were combined into one new system of 
Exchequer and court sessions. Old English customs and the new 
doctrines of the royal judges were combined into the common 
law of England. The various claims of the nobles and local 
bodies to separate customs and separate rights were giving way 
to the powers of the king and of the one central government. 
The old position of the king as elective head of the nation and 
the new idea of the king as feudal lord over the barons were com- 
bined into the limited monarchy of Henry III and the Edwards. 
The gradual increase of the power of the Great Council, or par- 
liament, marks the reign of Henry III, and the final admission of 
the commons in 1295 makes that date one of the most important 
in English history. Men from all parts of England and from all 
classes of the people now met almost every year and exercised 
a strong and growing influence on the government. 

Likewise during this period a national form of architecture 
was developed ; the English language had gone through most 
of its changes of form and was fast displacing French and Latin 
in spoken usage ; and the two great universities were drawing 
students from all parts of the country. 

Therefore, instead of different races with different languages, 
various kinds of law, and various kinds of courts, the English 
people were now to a great extent one united nation with similar 



FORMATION OF A UNITED ENGLISH NATION 229 

customs and a single government representing the whole people. 
This national union was of course new as yet, but it was real. 
England was more united, more truly a nation, than any other 
country of Europe at the beginning of the fourteenth century. 

General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, iii, sects. 4-7 ; chap. iv. 
This portion of Green's work is particularly valuable. Richardson, The 
National Movement in the Reign of Henry III, and Prothero, Simon de 
Montfort, are very good accounts of the early part of this period. Of 
the latter part, Tout, Edward I (Twelve English Statesmen), and Jenks, 
Edward I (Heroes of the Nations), give good accounts. The conditions 
of life in town and country can be read in Cheyney, Industrial History, 
chaps, ii and iii. The rise of the friars and the condition of the church 
can be read in full form in Stephens, The English Church, 1066-1272, 
or in Lea, History of the Inquisition, Vol. I, or in brief form in Jessopp, 
Coming of the Friars, and Other Essays, essay i. 

Contemporary Sources. — Matthew Paris, Chronicle (Bonn's Library). 
A number of extracts from that chronicle are given in Kendall, Source- 
Book, No. 25, and Colby, Selections from the Sources, No. 31. Documents 
concerning the summoning of parliament are in Translations and Reprints, 
Vol. I, No. 6 ; concerning towns and gilds, in Vol. II, No. 4 ; and concerning 
rural life, in Vol. Ill, No. 5. Hutton, Misrule of Henry III (English 
History from Contemporary Sources), and Frazer, English History from 
Original Sources, contain much scattered material. Cheyney, Readings, 
Nos. 111-134, illustrate this period. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Jane Porter, The Scottish Chiefs, is a spirited 
and interesting story of the time of the Scottish wars, but its characters of 
Wallace and other heroes are quite imaginary. Palgrave, The Merchant 
and the Friar, although in the form of a story, is almost all drawn from 
contemporary records. Marlowe, Edward II, is a tragedy written long 
afterwards but with a plot drawn from trustworthy chronicles. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Origin of Parliament, Montague, English 
Constitutional History, pp. 58-81 ; (2) Roger Bacon, Colby, Selections from 
the Sources of English History, No. 32; (3) St. Francis and St. Dominic, 
Robinson, History of Western Europe, pp. 225-232 ; (4) the Expulsion of 
the Jews, Abrahams, The Expulsion of the fews from England; (5) Archi- 
tecture and Art, Traill, Social England, Vol. I, pp. 415-427; (6) Univer- 
sities, ibid., pp. 429-440; (7) Fairs, ibid., pp. 460-470; (8) a Mediaeval 
Village, Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, and Other Essays, essay ii. 



CHAPTER X 

THE FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 
1338-1399 

198. Possessions of the English Kings in France. — National 
unity had been growing in France as in England during the 
thirteenth century, although more slowly and against greater 
obstacles. One of the results of this growth was to make the pos- 
session of the southern provinces of France by the English king 
seem unjust to the French rulers. The English had of course lost 
Normandy and the central French provinces, but the territories 
which they still held in the southwest of France made up at least 
a quarter of that country. The two most important of the prov- 
inces held by them were Guienne and Gascony, which together 
with some smaller provinces of the southwest were all frequently 
spoken of together as Aquitaine. The English king held them 
only as a vassal of the French king, and each successive sovereign 
from Henry II to Edward III had performed homage to the king 
of France for them. But they did it reluctantly. It was almost 
too much to expect an English king, used to being supreme in his 
island dominions, to kneel and in the forms of feudal humility 
promise to be the man of another ruler. He would naturally con- 
sider his dominions on one side of the Channel much the same as 
those on the other. The French kings, on the other hand, could 
not abate their claims. They must even take advantage of every 
excuse to extend them, because the English holdings in France 
stood in the way of their national unity. An irreconcilable con- 
flict was therefore impending over the two countries so long as the 
English continued to hold Aquitaine. 

230 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 23 1 

199. New Causes of Conflict. — During the reigns of the three 
Edwards several subordinate causes of conflict were becoming 
stronger. First, the French had given constant help in money, 
men, vessels, and protection to the Scots in their wars against the 
English. Secondly, the sailors of the growing fishing and trading 
towns on the English side of the Channel were in constant petty 
warfare with those of similar towns on the French coast. The 
kings of England and France were not strong enough to keep 
their own subjects in order and each blamed the other for these 
attacks in time of peace. Thirdly, the interests of England and 
France clashed in Flanders. Flanders was under the dominion 
of a count who was a vassal of the king of France ; but, on the 
other hand, all its trade interests and connections were with Eng- 
land, for the wool used by the weavers in their manufactures was 
imported from England and many of the articles manufactured 
in Flanders were exported to England. It was to the interest 
of the Flemings and the English to keep this trade open, but the 
French often closed it. 

Edward III had also a more personal dispute with the king 
of France. This was his claim to the inheritance of the French 
crown. His mother Isabella was the daughter of the French king 
Philip IV. Three brothers of Isabella had reigned successively 
but died leaving only daughters. Edward might therefore have 
hoped to inherit the French crown through his mother. 1 But the 
feeling in France against the rule of a foreigner, especially if the 

1 Edward's claim to the inheritance of the French crown may be shown 
by the following genealogy of the French kings. 

Philip III, 1270-1285 

i ' 1 

Philip IV, 1285-1314 Charles of Valois 



I I I I Philip VI, 

Louis X, Philip V, Charles IV, Isabella, 1328-1350 

1314-1316, 1316-1322, 1322-1328, married Edward II 
died without died without died without of England 

a son a son a son I 

Edward III of 
England 



232 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



foreigner were an Englishman, was very strong. It was therefore 
declared by the French nobles and lawyers to be a principle of 
French law that women could not inherit the throne, and conse- 




The Principal Wool-Raising Districts of England and Wool- 
Manufacturing Towns of Flanders and Brabant 



quently could not transmit the inheritance of it to a son. This 
custom was known as the " Salic Law," from an obscure provision 
of the code of the old Salian Franks excluding women from the 
inheritance of land. From these causes of conflict the two 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 233 



nations, France and England, were gradually becoming embittered 
against one another, and when war should arrive it would evi- 
dently be a real national conflict. It would be no mere feudal 
struggle between the English king and his overlord, the king of 
France, or a border war, such as had often occurred before, con- 
cerning the possession of some petty castle, but a great national 
struggle. 

200. Outbreak of the Hundred Years' War. — In 1328, when the 
last of the sons of Philip IV died, a cousin, Philip, count of 
Valois, was declared to be king of France, and was accepted by 
the whole French nation. After some 
hesitation Edward also acknowledged 
him and did homage to him for his 
French provinces, although with some 
reservations. For almost ten years, dur- 
ing Edward's minority, there was little 
more than a series of disputes between 
the two governments, but in 1337 
Edward began to make preparations for 
war and laid open claim to the throne 
of France. England had stood with her 
back to the. continent for more than a 
century while struggles between king and 
barons, and the conquests of Wales and Scotland, had absorbed 
the great interest of the king and the people. Now, however, an 
apparently endless war with France brought England into much 
closer intercourse with the rest of Europe. " The Hundred Years' 
War," as it came to be called, may therefore be taken as the 
principal thread of the history of the time. 

Edward and his ministers made every effort to obtain the 

approval and interest of all the people in the war, and found 

little difficulty in doing so. The circumstances that brought on 

the war were explained by the king's ministers in parliament, 

1 See royal arms on p. 173. 




The English Royal Arms 
as adopted by Edward III 
in 1338 (the French 
fleur-de-lis quartered with 
the English lions) 1 



234 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

by the sheriffs in the county courts, and by the clergy in the 
churches. Taxes were readily granted. Ambassadors were sent 
over to the continent to make alliances with Flanders and with 
the nobles great and small along the eastern borders of France. 

Edward himself went over to the Netherlands with an army in 
the summer of 1338, and a year afterwards invaded France. 
There was some fighting and much plundering, but little was 
really accomplished for several years. The methods of warfare 
at this time consisted more in the devastation of an opponent's 
territory than in actual fighting. English marauding expeditions 
pressed far into the heart of France, burning towns and villages, 
driving off flocks of sheep and cattle, destroying crops of grain, 
cutting down orchards, and leaving desolate behind them whole 
districts formerly fertile, prosperous, and thickly inhabited. The 
French retaliated by sending fleets to ravage and burn the Eng- 
lish coast towns along the Channel, pillaging their shops and 
killing and maltreating the people. 

201. The Battles of Sluys and Crecy. — Occasionally, however, 
serious battles occurred. After two years Edward made a visit 
to England and on his return, with a fleet of two hundred and 
sixty vessels gathered from the seaport towns of the southern 
and eastern coasts, met a great French fleet in the harbor of 
Sluys on the Flemish coast. A long and bitter struggle took 
place. The English weapons and plan of attack proved their 
superiority, most of the French vessels were captured, their 
crews slain or driven into the water, and a proof given of the 
English national capacity for sea warfare. 

In 1346 there was an even more brilliant victory on the land. 
Edward had taken a small but well-equipped army over to 
France, and had entered upon a reckless and brutal plundering 
and burning campaign through the duchy of Normandy. The 
French king with a vastly larger army at last intercepted his 
march and forced him to give battle. King Edward took his 
station in a position where the flanks and rear of his little army 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 235 

were protected by woods and the village of Crecy, and where the 
French would have to charge up the rising ground in front. The 
French army was large but poorly disciplined and disorderly. 
A thunder shower swept over the opposing armies, wetting the 
bow-strings of the Genoese crossbowmen who made up the 
advance guard of the French, but leaving unhurt the strings of 
the long-bows which the English archers carried and which they 
kept in their cases until the storm was over. The afternoon 
sun also shone in the faces of the French but on the backs 
of the English. Under these circumstances the French were 
poorly fitted to resist the shower of arrows which the English 
archers poured into their ranks as they approached. When the 
crossbowmen wavered, the fiery French knights dashed among 
and over them in their efforts to reach the English, till much of 
the French army was a struggling mass into which the English 
could pour a steady and destructive fire. Even when it came to 
hand-to-hand fighting, the position and discipline of the English 
gave them success. Finally they were able to press down the 
hill and drive the great French army into a confused flight. It 
was an overwhelming victory for English good generalship, good 
discipline, and good weapons, over the poor military organization, 
vainglorious bravery, and insubordination of the French. 

202. The English Long-bow. — In all the early contests of 
the Hundred Years' War the superiority of the English national 
weapon, the long-bow, had made itself manifest. This form of 
the bow, five feet or more long, aimed from the eye with the 
arm above the shoulder, 1 had come into use in England during 
the preceding century and had become the popular weapon for 
use in hunting, in shooting at the target, and in actual warfare. 
Boys learned to use it from their earliest years and attained 
wonderful skill with it. It could be shot with great accuracy 
of aim and for a long range, but its greatest value in warfare 

1 The bow of -earlier times was much shorter and was aimed from below 
the shoulder. See illustration of Norman archers on p. 97. 



236 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



was its rapidity of firing. While the crossbow had to be 
laboriously reversed and wound up after each discharge, the 
long-bow could be held in the hand as the archer with a single 
motion picked an arrow from a sheaf thrown on the ground at 
his feet or from a quiver at his side, fitted it into the string, 
drew the bow, and discharged it again. The rapid, galling, 
unending pour of the English arrows, " like snowflakes," is men- 
tioned in connection with all their battles and settled the fate of 

many of them in favor 
of the side which had 
the long-bow. At 
Sluys it was concen- 
trated from the ves- 
sels of the English 
line upon the decks 
of the French vessels 
till they were cleared 
so that English men 
at arms might board 
them. At Crecy it 
was the flight of ar- 
rows that made the 
cavalry charge of the 
French more and more slow and disorderly till it came to a stop 
and left them at the mercy of the English attack. In almost 
every recorded battle of this time the long-bow played a similar 
part. It is no wonder that it became an object of pride and 
romance. " The cloth-yard shaft," " the crooked stick and the 
gray goose wing," and other expressions for the bow and arrow 
became familiar in song and story. 

203. The Organization of the English Army. — The superiority 
of the English in a military way did not lie wholly in their weapons. 
The armies which were taken to the continent were comparatively 
small, but they were compact and well organized. All the troops 




Long-Bows and Crossbows in a Battle of the 
Hundred Years' War (from a manuscript of 
the fifteenth century) 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 237 

were paid regular wages. A knight received two shillings a day, 
an esquire one shilling, an ordinary archer threepence. Usual 
wages for workmen in the country were at that time from one to 
two pence a day, so the archers who took service in the army 
were paid almost twice the usual wages, besides what they might 
hope to get as booty. They were also volunteers, — they joined 
the king's forces at their own will. Many of them were in uni- 
form and served under the noblemen with whom they had volun- 
teered. The government went to great labor to provide proper 
equipment ; bows, sheaves of arrows, food, and drink being con- 
tinually sought by the king's officers. The armies were much 
more like modern armies than any that had fought before in 
either England or France since the time of the Roman legions. 
It was an expensive force, but so long as the English treasury 
could stand the strain it was far more effective than the armies 
which it met. 

204. The Capture of Calais. — After the battle of Crecy the 
English continued their retreat to the coast. There they laid 
siege to the town of Calais, whose harbor had long been a retreat 
from which French sailors had come out to attack English vessels 
and coast towns. During the early campaigns the English army 
had almost invariably failed to capture French towns. They had 
been forced to retreat from before city walls and betake themselves 
to the miserable business of plundering and burning the villages 
and open country while awaiting a pitched battle. Now, however, 
the good organization and equipment of the English army made 
it possible to keep up a long siege, and after almost a year of 
close investment Calais surrendered. Edward had a long account 
against the townsmen and garrison of Calais, not only for their 
vigorous resistance to his siege, but for their piracies of earlier 
times. He was therefore inclined to impose harsh terms of sur- 
render. The most that he could be prevailed on to grant was 
that all should be given their lives if six of the principal citizens 
would appear before him bareheaded and barefooted, with ropes 



238 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



around their necks, bringing the keys of Calais. Eustace de St. 
Pierre and five others volunteered to sacrifice themselves for their 
fellow-citizens. Although they delivered the keys kneeling and 
begging for mercy, Edward at first ordered them to instant exe- 
cution. The expostulations of his nobles and the prayers of 
Queen Philippa, who was in the camp, prevailed upon him, how- 
ever, to remove the sentence and set the prisoners at liberty : 
The French were all expelled from Calais and the town thrown 
open to English settlers. It remained 
practically an English city for more 
than two hundred years. By the close 
of 1347, the year in which Calais was 
captured, both the English and French 
were nearly exhausted, so a truce was 
agreed upon which with occasional in- 
terruptions lasted for several years. 

2 05. The Black Prince. — Part of the 
fighting at Crecy and before Calais had 
been under the leadership of the king's 
eldest son, Edward, then a boy of fif- 
teen years and commonly known as the 
"Black Prince," from the color of the 
armor which he habitually wore. He 
became more and more prominent as 
the war continued, fighting beside his 
father in hand-to-hand battles on sea and land, leading successful 
ravaging expeditions through the heart of France, and contending 
in tournaments during the short periods when there was no actual 
warfare in progress. He was passionately fond of fighting, brave, 
and venturesome, yet skillful as a general. He was courteous and 
kind, at least to men and women of the noble class, whether they 
were his own companions in arms or his defeated enemies. He 
fully satisfied the ideal of a chivalrous knight as that ideal was 
held at the time. 




The Black Prince (from the 
effigy on his tomb in Can- 
terbury Cathedral) 






FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 239 

206. Knighthood. — The fourteenth century was the golden 
age of chivalry. The word " chivalry " is somewhat vague in 
meaning and belongs perhaps to romance rather than to sober 
history. It is nevertheless true that in the later middle ages a 
group of ideals and practices grew up among knights and nobles 
which influenced their actions and feelings and did much to 
soften the repulsiveness of an age filled with brutality. 

A young man born from the class of feudal landholders was 
expected to serve for some years as page to a nobleman, knight, 
or noble lady, learning to wait at table, to ride, to use weapons, 
to play music, and to have good manners. Next he acted as 
squire or attendant on a knight till he had obtained practice in 
the tournament, in war r and in the ways of knighthood, and had 
come fully to man's age. He might then hope for an opportu- 
nity, seldom long lacking, to show his bravery and skill in war, 
when perhaps his feudal lord or some other knight would dub 
him knight on the field of battle. Often, however, knighting was 
a matter of more ceremony than this. A festival was made of 
the occasion and a sword was girded upon him ; he received 
the accolade, or stroke with a sword on the back, head, or neck, 
and then leaped upon his horse and rode away to show his skill 
in horsemanship or in arms. Religious services accompanied 
the ceremony, the arms of the new knight were solemnly blessed, 
and sometimes the candidate even fasted all night, watching in 
the church, then bathed, attended mass, and took an oath to fulfill 
all knightly duties. All present took part in girding on his armor 
and became witnesses of his oaths. To become a knight thus 
required considerable means, and many men of good birth never 
passed from the rank of squire to that of knight. 

The more highborn knights, after the time of the First Crusade, 
wore special emblems and mottoes on their shields, banners, or 
robes, and the science of heraldry grew up, of which these coats 
of arms were the subject. Two or three orders of knights who 
were also monks were founded in the twelfth century, the most 



240 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

famous of which were the Knights Templars and the Knights 
Hospitallers. Some knights traveled from land to land looking 
for adventures. These were known as " knights-errant." 

207. Rules of Chivalry. — There were certain rules of courage, 
faithfulness to one's lord, honorable treatment of enemies, respect 
for ladies, and religious devotion which were supposed to be known 
and practiced by every squire or knight. A good knight should 
be brave, truthful, and generous. 1 He should be ready to fight 
at any time and should always be in love with at least one lady. 
The rules and customs of chivalry were repeated in poetry and 
romance till they became familiar throughout all Europe. The 
fame of many knights and nobles celebrated in the middle ages 
was founded on their perfect observance of these rules. 

Many of the ideals of chivalry were high. Much of its practice 
and some of its ideals, on the other hand, were gross and brutal. 
None of its rules were considered to apply to any one not of the 
knightly class. It glorified fighting for its own sake and it con- 
doned many forms of immorality. Above all, chivalry was hollow. 
It was largely pretense, — a fashionable form of speech rather than 
of real feeling or of real action. 

Yet in the fourteenth century there was a great deal of brave 
fighting, much gorgeous ceremonial, some good romantic litera- 
ture, and much show, at least, of devotion of men to their wives, 
ladyloves, or mistresses. Much of this can fairly enough be 
credited to the rules of chivalry. 

At the court of Edward III, and above all in the person and 
among the followers of the Black Prince, it reached its height 
in England. In 1344, for instance, the king held a great tourna- 
ment at Windsor to which knights from all Europe were invited, 
and which he called, in remembrance of King Arthur, a " Round 

1 See the description of Chaucer's knight on page 258, and. further, 

He never yet no vileinye ne sayde, 
In al his lyf, unto no maner wight. 
He was a verray parfit gentil knight. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 241 

Table." About 1346 Edward founded the famous "Order of the 
Garter," a body of knights which still continues as one of the old- 
est and most honored knightly orders of Europe. Tournaments 
were a favorite pastime of this period and a frequent amusement 
of the king and his courtiers. In the narrative of Froissart, the 
chronicler who has most fully described the events of this period, 
it is this knightly, chivalrous side of life that is especially displayed. 

208. The Battle of Poitiers. — Chivalry, however, lost rather 
than won the great battles of the Hundred Years' War. The reck- 
less, unrestrained desire of the French nobles to get into personal 
combat with their enemies was responsible for most of the defeats 
which the French army suffered. The most striking instance 
of this was in the battle of Poitiers, fought in 1356. Upon the 
renewal of fighting after the last truce, the Black Prince led an 
English and Aquitanian army from Guienne northward through 
the heart of France, pillaging a part of the country not before 
reached by the war. The French king formed an army many 
times larger than that of the English, and succeeded in throwing 
himself in the way of their retreat. The English were in such a 
hopeless position that they were willing to retire on almost any 
te/ms they could get, but the desire for military glory on the part 
of the French nobles prevented them from accepting the English 
offers without having the pleasure of a battle. The same feeling 
led them into a reckless disregard of the advantages of their posi- 
tion and numbers, and the little English army under the Black 
Prince again won an overwhelming victory. The king of France, 
his son, and a great number of the highest nobles of France were 
taken prisoners, while many more were left dead upon the field. 
The king, the dauphin, and a long list of dukes, counts, and 
gentlemen were carried away to England, where they weie held 
for ransom. 

209. Peace of Bretigny. — After two or three more years of 
alternate truce and fighting, a peace was agreed upon at Bretigny, 
in 1360, between the English and the French governments, which, 



242 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

it was hoped, would close the war. Edward III agreed to give 
up his recent claim to the French throne and the older claims to 
Normandy, Anjou, and the other northern provinces. On the other 
hand, the southern provinces were to be separated from France 
altogether and handed over to the English king. No oath of 
fealty or homage was to be any longer due the French crown. 
Calais also was to be left to the English. A large ransom was to 
be paid by the French for the release of their captured king, and 
hostages were to be given until this sum was paid. The southern 
provinces which were thus surrendered to the English were made 
into a separate principality by King Edward and given, under the 
name of the duchy of Aquitaine, to his son, the Black Prince. 

210. Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. — From the middle 
to the end of the fourteenth century a number of laws were passed 
which mark another of the frequent conflicts with the papacy. 
For some time the pope had been extending his claim to the 
right of appointment of church officials in the various countries 
of Europe. In England a parish priest was usually appointed by 
the lord of the manor in which the parish church lay, a bishop 
was elected by the canons of his cathedral, and other church 
officials were appointed by the king, the bishops, or the heirs of 
those who had originally endowed their benefices. 1 The pope 
by his supreme authority frequently gave "provisions," that is, 
direct grants of appointment to such positions, to persons whom 
he wished to favor or who sought such appointments from him. 
Persons who held provisions from the pope were called "pro- 
visors of benefices." Papal provisions were always unpopular 
in England. They took away from Englishmen the right of making 
these appointments ; they were frequently given to foreigners who 
either did not come to England at all or could not understand 
the language of the people when they did come ; they caused the 
carrying away of much money that should have remained in 

1 Benefice means a position in the church producing an income, such as 
that of cathedral canon, parish priest, or nobleman's chaplain. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 243 

England. This opposition became still greater when the long war 
began, for the popes of the period were all Frenchmen, living at 
Avignon, and much under the influence of the French crown. 

As a result, -in 1342, the king forbade any one to bring into 
England provisions for benefices, and annulled all those which 
had recently been given. In 135 1 the matter was brought into 
parliament, and the first "Statute of Provisors " prohibited the 
practice, declaring that all rights of election or appointment in 
England should remain in the free possession of their ancient 
claimants. This law and a number of others which followed it 
down to 1390 were poorly enforced. One reason for this was that 
disputes on such questions were apt to be brought into church 
courts, where decisions were naturally given in favor of the pope's 
appointee. To prevent this last practice a " Statute of Prae- 
munire " 1 was passed in 1353 and another in 1393, forbidding 
appeals in such cases to the church courts and making it an 
offense punishable by loss of life and property for any one in 
England to act under authority obtained from the pope except 
with the king's consent. 

211. The Black Death. — Just after the capture of Calais a 
terrible and widespread calamity fell upon England, as it did 
indeed upon all Europe. This was a series of attacks of a new 
pestilence, or epidemic, beginning in the year 1348, increasing in 
violence in 1349, and dying out in 1350, but visiting the country 
from time to time afterward. This disease was the bubonic plague, 
and this first and most destructive visitation is usually known as 
the " Black Death." From one town, monastery, or country dis- 
trict to another throughout England the disease spread rapidly. 
Far the greater number of those attacked by it died, often with 
terrible suddenness. It has been carefully estimated that instead 
of about one person dying out of twenty, as would be the rate in 
an ordinary year, one of every two died during this epidemic. 

1 Praemunire, to warn beforehand, is the first word of the writ by which 
this law was to be carried out. 



tf; 



244 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

he plague seldom lasted more than a year in any one locality. 
Thus half of the population, including members of the royal fam- 
of the high nobility and clergy, as well as of the middle and 
lower classes, were swept away. Such a sudden and great decrease 
in population brought about many changes. So many of the 
clergy died that their places had to be filled with men less care- 
fully trained and chosen ; the monasteries, because of the loss of 
tenants on their lands, became poorer and able to support fewer 
inmates ; fewer students went to the universities, and much of the 
building and enlargement of churches ceased for a time. 

212. The Statutes of Laborers. — But the most distinct effect 
was on the position of the laboring classes, especially those in the 
country districts. As the demesne lands were still to be culti- 
vated, and as the number of the population who were available to 
work upon them was much diminished, laborers were of course in 
great demand. Naturally those who survived asked higher rates 
of wages for their work, and the employers in their need for work- 
men felt themselves bound to pay the higher wages demanded. 
The king, however, issued a proclamation, which was followed up, 
when parliament next met in 135 1, by a regular statute, forbidding 
laborers to ask any more for their services than the customary 
wages in the years next before the pestilence. This was the first of 
a series of laws known as the " Statutes of Laborers," which were 
reenacted time and time again for the next two centuries. They 
were very hard to enforce, as the lords of manors w T ould in many 
cases rather pay the high wages than run the risk of letting their 
crops go ungathered and their cattle untended, while the laborers 
felt that it was an injustice to forbid them to ask what their labor 
seemed to be worth. The government, however, was entirely in 
the hands of the uppe classes, the laws were made more and 
more severe, and fines were imposed both for paying and receiving 
higher wages than the law allowed. The effort to put the Statutes 
of Laborers into force was therefore a constant source of hard 
feeling between the employing and the employed classes. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 245 

213. Improvement in the Position of Villeins. — Several other 
changes, which were to a great extent the result of the pestilence, 
gradually showed themselves. Many tenants of small farms 
had died leaving no heirs, and landlords were therefore almost 
as much in need of tenants as they were of laborers. Under 
these circumstances it was a great temptation to villein tenants 
to run away from the manors to which they belonged, and where 
they lived under heavy payments and many burdens, and betake 
themselves to other places where they would be welcomed and 
given easier terms. In order to prevent them from leaving, there- 
fore, the lords of manors had to agree to diminished payments and 
services, and thus the condition of the tenants became better. 

Where the tenants had before this time been compelled to 
do two or three days' work in every week on the demesne land, 
the lord of the manor in many cases now felt himself compelled 
to let them pay small amounts of money instead, rather than 
have them depart altogether. An old chronicler says, " Those 
who received day's work of their tenants throughout the year, as 
the custom was with villeins, had to give them more leisure and 
remit such works, and either entirely free them or give them an 
easier tenure at a small rent." 

Under these conditions of difficulty — scarcity of laborers, high 
wages, and diminished services — the lords of manors gradually 
gave up the practice of cultivating their own demesne lands and 
rented them to tenants for money rents. The most important 
result of this change was that the landlords, now that they had no 
need themselves for laborers, took little interest in keeping them 
bound to their manors, and so one of the harshest rules of villein- 
age, that which restricted villeins to the manor, gradually ceased to 
be enforced. From this time onward se f lom became less general 
and less burdensome. The villeins became laborers or tenants, who 
might or might not be prosperous but who were at least free. 

214. Renewal of the War. — Every effort had been made by 
solemn oaths, the exchange of hostages, and papal guarantees to 



246 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

make the Treaty of Bretigny permanent. Nevertheless it could 
hardly be expected that it would be so, when France had been 
deprived of almost one third of her territory, burdened with a 
heavy debt, and left smarting under defeat and disgrace. Within 
a few years, therefore, war broke out again, and ran on in the 
form of indecisive campaigns alternating with periods of truce 
during almost all the rest of the fourteenth century. The fighting 
was on the whole more favorable to the French than the early 
campaigns had been. A group of French leaders had learned the 
lessons which the war had taught. They fought with more caution 
and skill, and for the time at least drove the English out of many 
of their earlier conquests. 

215. Parliamentary Agitation. — The ill success of the war 
during this period made the people of England more and more 
restless and dissatisfied with the government. King Edward him- 
self as he grew old took little part in the management of affairs, 
and they were much mismanaged by the ministers and courtiers 
who governed in his name. The man who had most influence in 
the government was the third son of the king, John, duke of 
Lancaster, known in history and literature as "John of Gaunt " ; 1 
but he showed little ability in statesmanship, and little attention 
was given to anything except the meeting of immediate needs. 
Taxes were heavy, the judges were open to bribery, and the king's 
officers throughout the country violated the rights of the people. 
Parliaments, however, were called almost every year to grant taxes, 
and thus an opportunity was given to present complaints against 
evil customs and to obtain promises from the king to introduce 
reforms and to change the laws. These repeated concessions to 
parliament confirmed its right to take part in almost all matters 
that concerned the government, although the laws made were by 
no means all carried out and discontent continued among all 
classes. 

1 He was so called because he was born in the Flemish town of Ghent, 
which the English pronounced Gaunt. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 247 

216. The Good Parliament and the Accession of Richard II 

The parliament which met in 1376 drew up a specially long and 
bold series of complaints covering almost the whole field of action 
of the government, its courage extorting from the king a promise 
to redress most of the grievances. This parliament also gave the 
first precedent for impeachment of the king's ministers by order- 
ing the arrest and punishment of those men who had been guilty 
of unlawful actions while in the service of the king. The bold 
efforts of this parliament to introduce permanent reforms into 
the government caused it to be known as the "Good Parliament." 

In the midst of its sessions the Black Prince died. He had 
returned from Aquitaine two years before, broken in health and 
depressed in spirits. He had encouraged the adoption of the 
reforms of the Good Parliament, but did not live to secure their 
enforcement. On his death Richard, his young son, was at the 
request of parliament brought before them and declared to be 
heir to the throne. Edward himself, who had already lost his 
mind, died in the next year (1377), and his young grandson 
succeeded him as Richard II. 

217. The Poll Taxes. — Notwithstanding the fact that the Eng- 
lish people had now all become one nation, with the same lan- 
guage, the same customs, a centralized government, and engaged in 
a great national struggle with France, yet there were many causes 
of bad feeling between the upper and lower classes. The im- 
provement in the condition of the small farmers and laborers 
already described was prevented by the Statutes of Laborers from 
progressing as rapidly as it should -have done. The villeins who 
were suffering under the burdens of serfdom felt even more 
impatient of them when some of their class were being emanci- 
pated. In many places there were old disputes between the 
landlords and their tenants, which had run on for long periods, 
but which now when the fortunes of the peasantry were rising 
became more bitter. The heavy taxation pressed upon all the 
people alike, but, as usual, the poorest suffered from it the most 



248 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The discontent among the mass of the people was kept up 
and their restlessness increased by popular preachers who trav- 
eled through the country discussing the conditions of the time 
in their sermons. Curious rhymes were repeated from mouth to 
mouth, starting from no one knew where, but expressing in pop- 
ular language the sense of misery and hardship, and increasing 
the widespread, sullen irritation among the lower classes. One 
preacher called attention to the natural equality of all men by 

crying, 

When Adam delved and Eve span, 

Who was then the gentleman ? _^ 

In 1379 this feeling became more intense when parliament 
introduced a new kind of tax, the so-called poll tax. Previously 
taxes had been laid upon land, upon the personal property of 
all freemen, and upon goods which were exported and imported. 
But now a direct tax was laid upon each person above twelve 
years of age. There was no chance of escaping it, since the 
collector came into each house to collect it from the head of the 
household. It was imposed upon freemen and villeins alike, and 
upon rich and poor. This tax was laid twice in three years, and 
whe^. the second tax did not produce as much as was expected 
the collectors were sent around a second time to find who had 
avoided paying it. 

218. The Peasants' Insurrection of 1381. — This second collec- 
tion of the second poll tax was in the early part of 1381, and 
seemed to be the spark to set on fire all the long-piled-up mate- 
rial for a great conflagration: In one village after another the 
people began rioting and attacked the tax collectors. They 
next turned against manor houses, castles, and monasteries. This 
rioting extended through much of the southeastern half of Eng- 
land. At the same time several great bodies of the rioters set 
out. for London to reach the young king and induce him to redress 
their wrongs. Some made their way into London from the east ; 
others came across the river from Kent. They had no difficulty 






FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 249 

in making their way into the city, as some of the London council 
and many of the citizens were in sympathy with them. 

A born leader came to the front, Wat or Walter Tyler, from 
whom the whole insurrection is often called " Wat Tyler's Re- 
bellion." There was no resistance and for two or three days 
London was at their mercy. They burned the city palace of the 
duke of Lancaster and a number of other buildings owned by 
unpopular nobles or by the Knights Hospitallers. They invaded 
the Tower, seized and, after the form of a trial, beheaded Arch- 
bishop Sudbury, who was lord chancellor, Sir Robert Hales, who 
was lord treasurer, and some lower officials. They attacked 
foreigners and unpopular citizens in the streets and put many 
to death. 

In the meantime King Richard agreed to meet the rebels, at 
their request, at Mile End, a village just east of London. There 
were said to be sixty thousand of them present with Wat Tyler at 
their head. The rebels asked for freedom from serfdom, the abo- 
lition of labor services, low rents, the repeal of the Statutes of 
Laborers, and some other reforms, and begged that they should 
be granted pardon for their rebellion. The king agreed to their 
demands, although, as it afterwards proved, without intending to 
be bound by his promise. Boy of fifteen as he was, he recognized 
the powerlessness of the government, and determined to promise 
everything and then withdraw his promises when he should again 
have the power. 

Some of the rioters then returned to their homes, but many 
others with their leaders remained in the city. The next day 
another interview with the king was arranged for, at which some 
further requests were to be made. The king with the mayor of 
London and a group of attendants met them in the evening at 
Smithfield. Tyler rode forward and laid the new demands before 
the king, who promised to grant them. But the tide soon turned. 
A dispute broke out between the companions of the king and the 
leader of the rebels. This became so violent that one of the 



250 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



nobles sprang forward, stabbed Tyler, and dragged him from his 
horse, while the others stabbed him to death as he lay upon the 
ground. As the rioters drew their bows against the royal party, 
the king, with great presence of mind and capacity for deception, 
rode forward toward them, crying out, " Are you seeking a leader? 
I will be your leader." The peasants, confused and without guid- 
ance, followed him outside the city gates, where they were suddenly 
surrounded by a force of troops which had been gathered by some 
of the king's officers. Here they were disarmed and sent away, while 
the gates of the city were shut and all strangers ordered to leave. 

While London was in the hands of the rebels, rioting had been in 
progress in many parts of the country. The manor court records 
kept by the landlords were burned .by the peasants ; stewards of 
estates, judges who had enforced the Statutes of Laborers, collec- 
tors of the poll tax, and foreign merchants were mobbed and in 
many cases killed. Monasteries were attacked and the abbots 
forced to grant to their tenants new charters giving privileges 
and freedom from old burdens. For a few days or even weeks 
everything seemed to be in the power of the insurgents. 

219. Failure of the Insurrection. — Their power fell as rapidly 
as it had risen. After the death of Wat Tyler and the departure 
of the insurgents from London the government began to take 
action, the nobles in different parts of the country put down the 
rioters in their neighborhood, and so the storm began to abate. 
Many of those who had taken part in the revolt were tried and 
executed by the king's judges. The charters of liberty which 
the king had given were withdrawn by proclamation, and those 
given by abbots and other landlords declared by parliament to 
be invalid. Things were placed as far as possible in exactly the 
position they had been in before the insurrection had broken out. 
After a few months a general pardon was issued to all those who 
had taken part in it and had not yet been punished. 

The rebellious laborers and small tenants had had no very clear 
idea of what they wished ; they were not well organized and had 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 251 

few capable leaders. It is therefore difficult to perceive any per- 
manent results of the rebellion. The poll tax was given up, and 
serfdom probably passed away more rapidly than had been the 
case previously. On the other hand, there are indications of a 
more embittered feeling between the lower and the upper classes 
than there had been before, and the latter made successful efforts 
to get more complete control over all forms of government in 
parliament, the church, the counties, and the towns. 

220. Wycliffe. — One of the causes of the restlessness among 
the people that led to the Peasants' Rebellion was a religious 
revival which was in progress at that time. ("John Wycliffe, a 
clergyman and a learned and popular teacher at the University 
of Oxford, was in the habit of calling frequent attention to the 
lack of earnest religious life on the part of most of the clergy. 
He complained that the bishops, abbots, and other higher clergy 
were engaged in the service of the government or occupied 
with the administration of the large property belonging to their 
churches. Priests of the parishes were neglectful of their charges, 
and the friars had become lazy, ignorant, and avaricious. The cure 
for this condition of affairs, he thought, was to be found in a 
life of poverty on the part of all clergymen, in less attention 
to ceremonies, and in a more intense religious earnestness. 

He taught that no one had any right to property unless he 
obeyed the laws of God, who granted all their possessions to men 
on condition of obedience to Him. If any churchman committed 
sin his property might be rightfully taken from him by his parish- 
ioners or by the government. When these teachings were opposed 
by other churchmen, especially by the bishops, he declared that 
the higher officials of the church had no real authority over other 
churchmen, and that all priests had an equal right to teach and 
act as they saw fit. He opposed the authority even of the pope. 

Like other learned men of the time, Wycliffe was much given 
to making fine distinctions in the use of words and expressions, 
and to disputing often for the mere sake of disputation and for 



252 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the enjoyment of keen argument. But he was also an earnest 
and self-reliant student of theology. In his disputations and 
writings he touched upon many of the doctrines of the church, 
and expressed views which were opposed to those generally held 
by churchmen. He thus made himself guilty of heresy. 1 

Wycliffe was in opposition to most of the churchmen of his time 
in three respects : first, in charging them with evil and unworthy 
lives which could only be amended by taking away from the church 
all its property ; secondly, by refusing to acknowledge that the 
pope and higher officials of the church had any authority over 
the lower ; and thirdly, in teaching religious doctrines which they 
considered heretical. He was, however, very popular in the uni- 
versity, and had many admirers among the learned and prominent 
men of the time. 2 

221. The Poor Priests and the Lollards. — To do the work of 
preaching the gospel, which the clergymen were leaving undone, 
to teach the people in their own language and to arouse them to 
a more earnest religious life, many men now began to go through 
the country wearing plain clothes and living on poor fare. They 
were known as " poor priests," and were probably sent out, and 
certainly encouraged and instructed, by Wycliffe, whose teachings 
they spread far and wide by their preaching. They were listened 
to with interest by the people, did much to awaken them, and 
gained wide acceptance for the views of Wycliffe. Those who 

1 Heresy consists in holding religious views which are declared by the 
proper authority to be untrue. In the fourteenth century this authority, 
of course, was the Catholic church. There was difficulty sometimes in 
obtaining an authoritative statement of what the teaching of the church 
really was, and until a decision had been given by the pope or a council 
there was room for much dispute. 

2 Wycliffe was a most voluminous writer. A society exists for the 
special purpose of providing for the printing of his Latin works. So far 
they have published twenty-five volumes, and several of his works still 
remain in manuscript. Four volumes of his English works have also been 
printed. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 253 

believed in the teachings of Wycliffe were given the nickname 
of " Lollards," a term long used in Germany and Holland for here- 
tics, and now introduced into familiar use in England. 

222. The Bible in English. — Besides their teaching and 
preaching the "poor priests" placed in the hands of the people 
the Bible translated into English. English and French transla- 
tions of parts or the whole of the Bible were already in existence, 
but only in the possession of the learned and in a small number 
of copies. Such knowledge of the Bible as the people had was 
obtained from its use in quotations and in the church service. 
The translations now made by the Wycliffites were spread widely 
by the work of copyists, and all who could read them were encour- 
aged by Wycliffe and his followers to do so. It is generally sup- 
posed that Wycliffe shared in this translation, and he certainly 
gave.it his countenance ; but there is no proof that he did any of 
the work of translation himself. 

223. Persecution of the Lollards. — The church authorities 
were in no haste to take action against Wycliffe and those who 
agreed with him, and some of the bishops may have sympathized 
with his teaching. As the movement spread, however, Archbishop 
Arundel, who had succeeded Sudbury, the victim of the rebels of 
138 1, began a vigorous resistance to the Lollards. Wycliffe was 
brought before a church court and finally, in 1382, was ordered 
to withdraw from teaching at Oxford. He retired to the parish 
of Lutterworth, of which he was rector, where he spent the remain- 
ing two years of his life. He wrote many of his theological and 
philosophical works and religious tracts at this time, and issued 
directions and advice to the " poor priests." Soon after Wycliffe 
was silenced, his active partisans at Oxford were brought before 
a church council and forced to acknowledge their errors and to 
cease teaching his views. Some of the most prominent Lollard 
preachers through the country were also summoned before the 
bishops for examination. Most of these early leaders of the Lol- 
lards gave way when they were brought to trial, and recanted. 



254 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

They were thereupon subjected to temporary punishment and 
then restored to the church. The authority of the church was still 
so completely unbroken, the doubt in the minds of these men as 
to whether they could be right when the whole church was against 
them was so strong, and their isolation was so complete that it is 
not a matter of wonder that in most cases they gave way when 
brought to the test. 

224. The Statute against Heretics. — Nevertheless, the awak- 
ened religious feeling among the people could not be so easily 
lulled to sleep. Many continued to hold the views of Wycliffe, 
or opinions even more opposed to the teachings of the church. 
Even at Oxford many of the students and masters held Lollard 
views. The same was true of members of the upper classes and 
of individual clergymen and laymen throughout the country, not- 
withstanding the repeated efforts of the bishops to punish all 
who held heretical beliefs. In 1401 a specially strong effort was 
made to stamp out heresy. An act was passed by parliament for- 
bidding any preaching or religious teaching without the author- 
ity of the bishop of the diocese, and any holding or spreading 
of opinions which had been condemned by the church. Persons 
suspected were to be arrested by the officers of the bishops and 
held in prison until they could prove their innocence or would 
recant from their errors. If they could not or would not do so, 
they were to be handed over to the sheriff of the county or other 
proper official and burned to death in some high place as a 
warning to others. In the very year of the new statute a Lollard 
priest was burned at the stake, and during the next few years 
three or four others suffered in the same way. 

Some years later, in 14 14, the Lollards had become so numer- 
ous and their opinions had gone so far beyond those of Wycliffe 
that a group of them planned an insurrection. This was discov- 
ered and punished and was followed by more violent laws against 
them. In the next half century a large number, probably as many 
as sixty or seventy, were burned or hanged, either for heresy 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 255 

or for heresy and treason combined. After that time the Lollards 
are heard of less and less, and their opinions either died out 
altogether or sank into obscurity. 

225. Increasing Use of the English Language. -It was one of 
the notable characteristics of the Lollard religious revival that 
Wychffe and his companions preached and wrote largely in Eng- 
lish. In doing so they were appealing to all classes of men 
The language of the common people was in the fourteenth cen- 
tury fast becoming the language of all Englishmen. Latin was 
still the language of the learned at the universities and in the 
church, and French was still understood and spoken by many 
of the nobles and the merchants. But more of them understood 
and spoke only English. In 1362 a law was passed requiring 
that the pleadings in the courts should for the future be carried 
on only in English. The next year the chancellor's speech at 
the opening of parliament was for the first time given in English 
Literature responded to this change. There was much religious 
writing in English by orthodox churchmen as well as by the Lol- 
lard teachers. Several translations were made of parts of the Bible 
into English besides that connected with the name of Wycliffe 

226. Piers Plowman. — Popular poems were also written in the 
language of the common people. The longest and most famous 
of these was the Vision of William concerning Piers the Plow- 
man. It is a dreamy and somewhat confused series of allegor- 
ical descriptions and dialogues, in which Pride and Gluttony, 
Virtue and Reward, and other personified virtues and vices tell 
their experiences and make their confessions. It has, however, 
the charm of picturesque description and fiery earnestness. It 
is written m the homely, everyday language of the people, in 
a kind of alliterative verse similar to that of the old Anglo-Saxon 
poetry. It has a swing and a rhythm which made it catch the 
ear as well as- the heart of the people. Its author seems to have 
been named William Langland, although nothing else is known 
about him than can be learned from the poem itself. He was 



256 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

apparently a man of some learning, but evidently one of the com- 
mon people, deeply, even bitterly in earnest in his condemna- 
tion of the special follies and evils of his time. The popularity 
of this poem, long and serious as it is, was very great. There 
are still in existence some thirty-six manuscript copies of it made 
before the invention of printing, a century afterwards. " Piers 
Plowman " became the common name to apply to a poor laboring 
countryman. Composed in its first form about 1370, it was 
rewritten by the author in two later forms with an interval of 
several years between each. Its English can still be read without 
much difficulty, as its opening lines will show. 

In a somer sesun whon softe was the soune, 
I schop me into a schroud a scheep as I were ; 
In habite of an hermite unholy of werkes, 
Wende I wydene in this world wondres to here. 
Bote in a Mayes morwnynge on Malverne Hulles 
Me bifel a ferly, a feyrie me thouhte; 
I was weori of wanderinge and wente me to reste 
Under a brod banke bi a bourne syde. 

227. Chaucer. — Piers Plowman was a poem of the common 
people, written by an unknown author. It was stern and reli- 
gious in its character, representing the feelings of a period of 
popular excitement, and reflecting the oppressions, the hard- 
ships, and the coarseness of the poor. In quite another class of 
society and representing quite different surroundings and feelings 
was Geoffrey Chaucer, the most famous poet of the period and 
one of the most popular of English poets of all time. He was 
the son of a well-to-do London merchant, brought up as a page 
in the service of one of the ladies of the royal family. He took 
part in the war in France, traveled to Italy, and during most of 
his life was engaged in various government offices and in embas- 
sies to the continent. He was familiar with the French and 
Italian literature of the time, and wrote his English poems under 
the influence of these better models. His most famous poems 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 257 



are the group called The Canterbury Tales. They describe 
thirty pilgrims on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas at Can- 
terbury, all starting out from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, 
across the river from London, and each agreeing to tell two tales 
to while away the time during the journey. His poem is prin- 
cipally made up of these tales, told by the knight, the shipman, 
the wife of Bath, the miller, and all the rest of the merry party 
that he brings before us so vividly. 

The poet's good humor and brightness never fail, his use of 
language and formation of verse are skillful, and the stories in- 
clude a large group of romantic 
mediaeval legends and many of 
the classical tales he had learned 
in Italy. There is a certain genial 
spirit of carelessness and even 
recklessness running all through 
Chaucer's poetry that strikes one 
as strange amidst the harsh real- 
ities and the popular excitement 
of his time. But it is to be re- 
membered that he belonged to 
the upper classes, and that he 
represented the prosperous, 
traveled, chivalric, and lively ele- 
ment in English society. Yet 
even Chaucer had his earnest side. At the end of The Cafiter- 
bury Tales he asks forgiveness for what is merely worldly in his 
book, and closes it with a prayer of penitence. Chaucer was 
England's most popular poet, and long afterward, when the art 
of printing was introduced into England, his Canterbury Tales 
was one of the very first books printed. His English is still more 
like that of modern times than the ruder language of "Piers 
Plowman," as can be seen from the following passages from the 
prologue to The Canterbury Tales, 




W" 



Chaucer (from a contemporary 
portrait) 



$3 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man, 
That fro the tyme that he first bigan 
To ryden out, he loved chivalrye, 
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisye. 

There was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, 
That of hir smyling was ful simple and coy; 
Hir gretteste ooth was but "by seynt Loy"; 
And she was cleped madame Eglentyne. 



At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle ; 
She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, 
Ne weete hir fingres in hir sauce depe. 
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, 
That no drope ne fille upon hir brest. 

228. Personal Career of Richard II. — Richard was but twelve 
years old on the death of his grandfather, Edward III, in 1377, 
and he did not take firm hold of the reins of government till 
he was twenty-three. During this long minority the government 
was controlled by successive parties of nobles and by ministers 
appointed by parliament. They cannot be said to have ruled the 
country wisely or successfully. The Peasants' Rebellion stirred 
the nation to its depths, expensive and ineffective campaigns in 
France wasted without result the force of both nations, the poll 
tax and other heavy burdens were laid upon the people, and there 
was a continual cry of misgovernment, disorder, and oppression. 

In 1389 Richard suddenly appeared in the council, declared 
himself of age, asked for the resignation of the ministers, and 
announced his intention of managing the affairs of the realm, 
choosing his own councilors, and being the king of England in 
fact as well as in name. For seven years after this he carried on 
a moderate and popular government, following the old customs, 
calling parliament frequently, asking for but small taxes, encoura- 
ging the adoption of good laws, making a long truce with France, 
and respecting the rights of individuals and classes. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 259 

But the natural inclinations of Richard were to the exercise of 
absolute power. In 1396 he visited the French court and married 
the daughter of the king of France. Whether the long effort to 
rule moderately had at last wearied him, or whether he had been 
carried away by the greater freedom of action of the French king, 
or whether his mind was affected, as has been sometimes believed, 
from this time forth his character and actions changed. He began 
to collect money in various illegal ways, surrounded himself with 
a bodyguard of archers, brought about the trial and execution or 
banishment of several nobles for offenses which they had com- 
mitted years before, and exercised such influence over the elec- 
tions to the parliament of 1397 that when it met it was ready to 
do his bidding in all things. He induced it to repeal certain 
laws and pass others which made him practically an absolute mon- 
arch. For about two years he was in a position to rule as he 
pleased. His government, however, was unwise. He angered 
the people by extortionate taxes, made the extravagant expenses 
of the court still heavier, and committed many other acts of des- 
potic power, which, together with the recent executions, banish- 
ments, and interference with the freedom of parliament, took 
away all the popularity which he had formerly enjoyed. 

229. Deposition of Richard II and Accession of Henry IV. — 
Finally he banished his first cousin, Henry of Lancaster, son of 
John of Gaunt, and afterwards confiscated his estates, which were 
the most extensive of any noble of England. Henry was a man 
of much experience and ability. He had fought in a crusade 
in Poland, traveled to Jerusalem and through much of Europe, 
was well known and popular in England, and therefore was not 
likely to submit to permanent banishment and disinheritance. 
He waited in France till times should be better. 

In 1399 when King Richard went on a campaign to Ireland, 
leaving England in the hands of a regent, Henry suddenly 
appeared with a small party in the north of England, declaring 
that he had come back to claim his estates. His popularity and 



260 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the unpopularity of Richard were so great that as he passed through 
the country he soon had an army at his back and extended his 
claims to the throne itself. When the king returned from Ireland 
he found himself deserted and all England in the hands of 
Henry. He recognized that all was lost and promised to resign 
the crown. He was imprisoned and required to sign a paper 
renouncing his position and power as king. Parliament was called, 
the abdication of Richard read, charges against him drawn up, 
and an act deposing him passed. Then Henry of Lancaster arose, 
stepped forward to the vacant throne, signed himself with the 
cross on his forehead and breast, and made a speech claiming 
the throne as being of royal blood and sent by God to restore 
the realm. Parliament immediately acknowledged him as king. 
He was then crowned with the title of Henry IV. He and his 
successors are known as the "House of Lancaster," or the "Lan- 
castrian branch " of the Plantagenet line of kings. Richard was 
placed in captivity in a castle in the north of England and died 
within the next few weeks, from a cause then unexplained and 
always since unknown. Henry has of course been charged with 
bringing about his murder, but no proof has ever been given of it. 
230. Summary of the Period from 1338 to 1399. — The period 
which has now been surveyed saw the English nation, which had 
been brought into complete union during the previous two hun- 
dred years, use its united strength in a great national war against 
France. The brilliant victories of Sluys (1340), Crecy (1346), 
and Poitiers (1356), and many smaller successes gained in this 
war furnished a fund of glory on which the English drew for cen- 
turies afterwards. Yet, notwithstanding the favorable Treaty of 
Bretigny (1360), the effort to put the English king on the throne 
of France or to gain any considerable part of France and make 
it permanently subject to England was a failure. The effort 
was plainly opposed by those two powerful factors in the evolu- 
tion of history — geography and race. The indirect effects of 
the war were, however, very important. England was drawn into 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 261 

closer connection with the continental countries, with great advan- 
tage to her trade, industry, and intellectual progress; and the 
excitement and successes of the war aroused the people in all 
respects. 

Parliament grew stronger and obtained a recognized right to 
share in many of the powers of the government. Those classes 
of the people which were represented in its two houses now had 
a chance to be heard and to have their interests attended to, and 
there was consequently much legislation for their advantage. The 
lower classes of the people, however, had no influence over the 
government or opportunity to make their grievances heard in 
any peaceful way. It was because of this that they rose in the 
desperate insurrection of 1381. Although this revolt was com- 
pletely put down by the king and the upper and middle classes, 
the time was nevertheless one of progress for the lower classes. 
The effects of the great pestilence of 1349 and other changes 
were quietly relieving the villeins of their serfdom and making 
some of them into free yeomen or small farmers, and others into 
free laborers. 

Despite the war abroad and restless disorder in England itself, 
the latter part of the fourteenth century was a particularly active 
intellectual and literary period. The use of English became 
practically universal in literature, French being given up almost 
entirely and Latin to a very great extent. WyclifTe, Langland, 
Chaucer, and others wrote works which were widely known at the 
time and are read even yet. Besides these many pious works 
were written which still exist only in their manuscript form. The 
Bible was translated into English and reproduced in numerous 
copies, although the authorities of the church restricted the read- 
ing of it and an effort was made to destroy all the copies that had 
already been made. They feared the effect of the unauthorized 
interpretations expressed in the translations or in the comments 
accompanying them. The idea that each man should be allowed 
to hold what opinions he chose on religious matters had not yet 



262 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

arisen, and the organized church was still too strong and too 
narrow-minded to permit a group of men to exist holding or 
teaching a different set of religious views from its own. The 
church authorities, with the help of the king and the royal and 
town officials, persecuted the heretical Lollards so vigorously that 
all such belief died out for the time. 

General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, v, sects. 1-5, contains 
a vivid account of this period, especially characteristic of Green's predilec- 
tions but inaccurate in its account of the Peasants' Rebellion. MacKinnon, 
History of Edward III, is the most recent book on his period. War- 
burton, Edward III (Epochs of Modern History), is good. For the later 
part of the period the best book is Trevelyan, England in the Age of 
Wycliffe. The Black Death is best and most fully described in Gasquet, 
The Great Pestilence. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, essays iv and v, 
gives a very. vivid and interesting account of the pestilence in the eastern 
counties. The Peasants' Rebellion is carefully described in the book by 
Trevelyan named above, and by Kriehn, American Historical Review, 
Vol. VII, Nos. 1 and 2, For Wycliffe see Sergeant, Wyclif, and Poole, 
Wycliffe and the Movements for Reform (Epochs of Church History), and 
Lechler,/<?/£« Wiclif (two volumes). Much interesting material about this 
period is to be found in Jusserand, English Wayfaring life in the Middle 
Ages. Cornish, Chivalry, illustrates still another side of the life of the time. 

Contemporary Sources. — Froissart, Chronicle, gives by far the most 
full and interesting account of the events of this period and is reasonably- 
accurate, though always prejudiced in favor of the king and the nobility. 
It is translated by Johnes in two thick volumes. The Globe Edition volume 
contains a well chosen series of extracts. The Boy's Froissart is not so 
good but may be used. Chaucer and Piers Plowman can be read in 
their original form with but little difficulty. Ashley, Edward III and 
his Wars (English History by Contemporary Writers), contains many 
interesting extracts from chronicles and state papers. Translations and 
Reprints, Vol. II, No. 5, is devoted to material illustrative of this period. 
Several interesting extracts from Froissart and other contemporary writers 
are in Kendall, Source-Book, Nos. 29-36; a still larger number and of 
greater variety in Frazer, English History Illustrated from Original Sotirces, 
1307-1399 ; a few in Colby, Selections from the Sources, Nos. 39-42, and in 
Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 90-99. A large number of documents of a legal 
and constitutional nature are given in Adams and Stephens, Select Docu- 
ments, but none during this period are of the first importance. 



FIRST HALF OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 263 

Poetry and Fiction. — Shakespeare, Richard II, begins the series of 
continuous historical plays which extend over this and the next two cen- 
turies. They are based in most cases on Holinshed's Chronicle, and 
although not strictly accurate interpret the history of the time with won- 
derful power. Miss Yonge, Lances of Lynwood, is a tale of this period. 
Morris, A Dream of John Ball, is an idealization of the objects of the peas- 
ants in the rebellion of 1381. Southey, Wat Tyler, is a drama concerning 
the same events. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Black Death, Traill, Social England, II, 
pp. 133-137; (2) Effects of the Black Death on Wages, ibid., 137-146; 

(3) Methods of Warfare during the Hundred Years' War, ibid., 1 72-181 ; 

(4) Wycliffe's Influence, ibid., 159-172; (5) Chaucer's Poetry, ibid., 206- 
222, and The Canterbury Tales, Prologue ; (6) the Treaty of Bretigny, 
Froissart, Chronicle, chap. 212; (7) the "Battle of Crecy, ibid., chap. 130 
(given in Kendall, Source-Book, No. 30) ; (8) the Peasants' Rebellion in 
Norfolk and Suffolk, Powell, Peasant Rising in East Anglia ; (9) the 
Disappearance of Serfdom, Cheyney, article in English Historical Review, 
1900, pp. 20-37; (10) the Recantations of the Lollards, Cheyney, article 
in American Historical Review, 1 899, pp. 423-438. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK. 1399-1485 

231. Reign of Henry IV. — Parliament had taken a prominent 
part in the deposition of Richard and the election of Henry of 
Lancaster to the throne. Indeed, although the change of kings 
was really the result of the military power shown by Henry, yet 
in appearance it was altogether the action of parliament, and 
could not have been accomplished with so little difficulty except 
with its consent. Henry pledged himself to govern in accordance 
with the wishes of that body, and neither to interfere in elections 
nor to violate its rights, as his predecessor had done during the 
last two years of his reign. 

The power of parliament had been increasing almost steadily dur- 
ing the century since it had obtained its full form under Edward I. 
Its division into the House of Lords and the House of Commons 
has been already described. The constant necessity for appeals by 
the king to parliament to grant taxes for the expenses of the long 
war with France had given it abundant opportunity to demand and 
obtain the grant of new rights. It met almost every year, some- 
times more than once in the year. In the fifty years of the reign 
of Edward III, parliament met forty-eight times. In Richard's 
reign of twenty-two years, it met twenty-four times. Frequently 
when a grant of taxes was asked for, the members of parliament, 
especially of the House of Commons, replied by making com- 
plaints of certain actions on the part of the king or his ministers, 
and agreeing to appropriate the money if their wishes in these 
matters were granted. The king was generally obliged to yield. 
Thus changes were introduced into the mode of carrying on the 

264 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 265 



government, and precedents established for the further interfer- 
ence of parliament 

Little by little parliament obtained in this way four classes of 
powers. No taxes could be imposed or collected without its con- 
sent; no new laws could be adopted without its agreement; it 
could impeach the king's ministers ; and it could press upon the 
king its advice in all important measures of government, includ- 
ing foreign wars and treaties. Besides these powers, members of 
parliament had obtained certain well- 
established privileges. They were free 
from arrest while present at, going to, or 
coming from parliament, and they could 
say anything they wished in debates in 
parliament without being punished after- 
ward for it. Many of the rights and 
privileges which all modern legislatures 
possess are derived from the powers which 
the English parliament gained "between 
1295 and 1400. 

Henry kept good faith with parliament 
and ruled for the most part in accordance 
with its wishes, although its complaints 
and demands were numerous. His reign, 
which lasted for fourteen years, was not, 
however, a fortunate one. There were 
partial renewals of the war with France. The struggle of the gov- 
ernment with the Lollards which has been already described fell 
mostly within his reign. He had difficulties with Scotland, dis- 
sensions in his own family, and above all, as might have been 
expected from the way in which he had obtained his crown, he 
was troubled with many conspiracies and rebellions. 

232. Rebellion of Owen Glendower. — One of these was of 
greater importance and survived longer than any of the others 
because it had back of it the still unconquered national spirit of 




Henry IV (from the effigy 
on his tomb) 



266 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the Welsh people. Since the conquest by Edward I, the native 
Welsh princes had been deprived of their independence, and 
castles had been built here and there through Wales to hold the 
country down. These castles were occupied by English barons, 
known as " Lords Marchers," who exercised most of the powers of 
government over the surrounding natives. The Lords Marchers 
were hard masters to the native Welsh gentry and peasants, and 
disputes and conflicts were frequent and bitter. Just at the begin- 
ning of Henry's reign a Welsh gentleman named Owen Glendower 
rose in revolt against the English nobles. These were of course 
upheld by the king. Glendower, on the other hand, gradually 
drew to his side by far the larger portion of the native population 
of Wales. He was descended from the native princes, and could 
appeal to that loyalty which is the strongest of all sentiments 
among a people still living as clans. The love of independence 
of the Welsh people proved to be still alive, and minstrels 
passed through the country stirring up the people by recalling 
traditions of resistance to invaders from the time of the Romans 
downward. 

Owen was soon proclaimed Prince of Wales and proved to be a 
skillful leader. He made devastating raids through the adjacent 
counties of England and the more thickly settled parts of Wales, 
and even captured several of the castles. He was idolized by 
his countrymen and credited by the superstitious among both 
Welsh and English with magical knowledge and powers. He 
defeated or evaded successive armies sent- against him, several of 
them led by the king himself, and for a few years made Wales 
almost independent. His power was strengthened by the out- 
break of a great conspiracy against Henry. The two most power- 
ful noblemen of the northern shires of England, Henry and Thomas 
Percy, earls of Northumberland and Worcester, who had helped 
to put Henry on the throne, now rose in revolt and joined Glen- 
dower. With them were "Harry Hotspur," son of the earl of 
Northumberland, a famous young soldier, and the earl of Douglas, 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 267 



a Scottish nobleman. This conspiracy threatened to be too strong 
for the king to resist. But in the destructive battle of Shrewsbury 
in 1403 the conspirators with their army of fourteen thousand men 
were overthrown, Hotspur killed, and the two earls captured. 
Little by little the greater wealth and power and better organiza- 
tion of the English, and the perseverance of the king and his son, 
Prince Henry, broke the resistance of Owen and his Welsh adher- 
ents. The castles were recaptured and the whole of Wales was 
finally restored to obedience and 
comparative good order. 

233. Renewal of the French War 
under Henry V. — In 1413 Henry IV 
died and his eldest son Henry suc- 
ceeded him. Almost from the be- 
ginning of his reign Henry V planned 
to renew the old war with France. 
He was by nature and early train- 
ing a good soldier and a vigorous 
ruler, and was ambitious to win glory. 
What was more natural than that he 
should seek it in France? Condi- 
tions were favorable ; the French 
king was insane and two great parties 
among the nobles of France were 
involved in bitter disputes which constantly brought them to the 
verge of civil war. In 14 14 Henry took a small but well-equipped 
army across the Channel. The war was soon marked by another 
brilliant victory for the English, that of Agincourt, fought in 
1415, which was even more decisive than Cre'cy or Poitiers. The 
English archers and men at arms stood at bay while they were 
attacked by a French army six times as numerous as their own ; 
then when the French were halted by muddy ground and the 
flight of arrows the English swept down upon them and crushed 
them. 




Henry V (from a contemporary 
portrait) 



268 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

In the main the policy of Henry V was to carry on a war of 
sieges and of the capture of towns instead of mere ravaging, as had 
been done by Edward III and the Black Prince. He captured 
the cities and occupied the country methodically as he passed 
through it. But while he was engaged in besieging the princi- 
pal towns of Normandy, he was at the same time trying to obtain 
the support of one of the two contending French parties. He 
was finally successful in this, and in 1420 a treaty was signed at 
Troyes by which Henry was acknowledged as heir to the throne 
of France after the death of Charles VI, the insane king, and its 
regent in the meantime. To seal this treaty Henry married the 
daughter of the French king and proceeded rapidly to seize those 
parts of France which held out against his claims. 

The reign of this great king was, however, a short one, lasting 
only nine years. His death and that of his father-in-law, which 
occurred a few weeks afterward, made his infant son Henry VI, in 
1422, nominally king both of England and France. The eldest 
son of the late king of France still considered himself heir to 
the throne, although he had been disinherited by the Treaty of 
Troyes. The war therefore still continued. For a long time 
it went in favor of the English. John, duke of Bedford, an uncle 
of the young king, acted as regent, and with the aid .of veteran 
English leaders and soldiers succeeded in holding most of France 
and defeating the Dauphin's party in many engagements. 

234. Joan of Arc. — Finally, however, the tide turned and the 
war began to go against the English. This was due in great part 
to the influence of a young French peasant girl, Joan of Arc. 
Inspired by the belief that she had been given a mission by God 
to deliver France from its invaders and to place the Dauphin on 
the throne of his fathers, she appeared before him, secured his 
reluctant consent to allow her to lead some troops, inspired them 
with her own enthusiasm and confidence, and won a great success 
by driving away the English who were besieging Orleans. The 
Dauphin himself was then stirred to greater activity and under 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 269 

the persuasion of the Maid of Orleans, as she came to be called, 
made his way to Rheims, the ancient coronation city of the French 
kings, and was there crowned king of France. Joan now felt that 
she had fulfilled her mission and asked to be allowed to return 
to her home, but the Dauphin insisted that she should remain 
with the army. Some time after this she was captured by the 
English. After a trial which was planned to end in but one 
way she was burned as a witch in the market place of Rouen. 
Even one of the persecutors of the innocent French patriot girl 
wavered and turned away, crying, "God have mercy upon us, 
we have burned, a saint." The movement of success which Joan 
had begun continued, and although the French frequently wasted 
their opportunities, yet on the whole the reconquest of their native 
land went steadily on. The English were driven out of one prov- 
ince after another; their expeditions from England were more 
poorly equipped and more unsuccessful. Finally the long war 
came to a close in 1453 by the defeat of an English army near 
Bordeaux, and the loss of all their territory in France except 
Calais. 

235. Wars of the Roses The close of the Hundred Years* 

War was only a change from war abroad to war at home for the 
next thirty years. The wealth and power of the English nobles 
were at this time very great. A number of them were related in 
one way or another to the royal family. They had valuable 
estates scattered in different parts of the country and kept in 
their service large numbers of retainers. 1 With these numerous 
bodies of followers in their service and wearing their badge the 
nobles were never at a loss for men to carry out their quarrels, 
which were very frequent. There were many jealousies and 
enmities, and parties were continually being formed among them 
in deadly opposition to one another. So long as there was a 

1 Retainers were hired followers who could be called upon to act as 
attendants on occasions of show, to fulfill duties as messengers or servants 
about their lord's household, and, if there should be need, to fight for him. 



270 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

strong king reigning the nobles were forced to keep order among 
themselves, but after the death of Henry V there was a long 
period, while Henry VI was still a child, when they could not be 
controlled. Even after he had grown up he proved to be too 
mild, easy-going, and weak to keep a strong hand over the turbu- 
lent and disorderly elements of the country. 

The king was always under the influence of one group of nobles 
or another. Those who were excluded from office plotted to drive 
from power those who surrounded the king. These efforts finally 
led to civil war, and a succession of bloody battles was fought, 
several years, in some cases, intervening between^ one battle and 
another. This series of battles is known as the " Wars of the 
Roses." 

236. The House of York. — The king's nearest kinsman and 
the most powerful and conspicuous noble in England was Richard, 
duke of York. He was descended on one side from an elder 
and on the other from a younger brother of John of Gaunt, duke 
of Lancaster, the father of Henry IV and great-grandfather of 
Henry VI. The duke of York had therefore, by strict hereditary 
right, a better claim to the throne than Henry himself. 1 He did 
not openly make this claim, simply acting as leader of one faction 
of the nobility. Yet more than once he and his party took arms 

1 The claim of the duke of York to the throne was based on the 
following line of descent from Edward III. 

Edward III, 1327-1377 

I 1 ' ■ 1 ; I 

Edward, Lionel, John of Gaunt, Edmund, 

the Black Prince, duke of Clarence duke of Lancaster duke of York 

died 1376 



I 
Richard II, 1377-1399 



Henry IV, 1 399-1413 

Henry V, 1413-1422 

Henry VI, 1 422-1 461 
Anne, married 1 Richard, 

Richard, duke of York 

I 

Edward, duke of York, 

became king, 1461 



earl of 
Cambridge 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 2J\ 




Rose Noble of Edward IV, showing on the 
Side of the Ship the White Rose Badge of 
the House of York 



against those nobles who were gathered around the king, and 
thus in a certain sense fought against the king himself. This 
division of parties gave its name to the civil war. A white rose 
was one of the family emblems of the duke of York, and was used 
by the nobles of his party. A red rose was then adopted as a 
badge by the. nobles who surrounded the king and were adherents 
of the Lancastrian family from which the king was descended. 
The white rose of York 
and the red rose of 
Lancaster thus became 
synonymous with the 
two great political 
parties. 

Little by little the 
contest drifted into a 
struggle for the crown. 
As feelings became 
more embittered and as the king became subject to attacks of 
insanity, inherited no doubt from his grandfather, the king of 
France, the ambition of Richard of York to seize the kingship 
for himself was aroused, but in 1460, at the battle of Wakefield, 
he was defeated and slain. His claims to the leadership of his 
party, to the headship of the House of York, and to the crown 
itself then descended to his son Edward. 

237. Edward IV. — Events now moved on rapidly. After a 
successful battle against the nobles of the king's party in 1461, 
Edward declared himself king by hereditary right and was crowned 
with the title of Edward IV. He treated Henry as a usurper, and 
forced him to flee, with his wife, son, and principal adherents, into 
Scotland. 

The civil war still continued, however, the party of the fugi- 
tive king fighting more than one successful battle, and even in 
147 1 driving Edward temporarily from the country and replacing 
Henry on the throne. This change of rulers was largely brought 



272 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



about by the change of sides of Richard Neville, earl of War- 
wick, previously a strong supporter of the Yorkist claims. His 
influence over the changes in the holding of the crown has given 
him the name of the "king-maker." This arrangement lasted 
but a few months, when Edward was restored and Henry was 
imprisoned in the Tower, where he soon died. On the whole 
the reign of Edward IV, which continued till 1483, was peaceful, 
successful, and prosperous. 

238. The Towns in the Fifteenth Century. — The civil war was 
mainly a contest among the nobles and was fought out by their 

own retainers. It passed over the 
heads of the great body of the people 
and they were not much affected by 
it. This was the period when the 
towns of England attained their great- 
est prosperity and most complete self- 
government. Less labor, money, and 
attention were now given to the build- 
ing of castles, cathedrals, and abbeys 
than in earlier times, but much more 
were given to town buildings and im- 
provements. The towns were becom- 
ing larger, and wharves, market houses, 
paved streets, aqueducts, timber-built 
dwelling houses, and new parish churches were becoming common. 
At the same time the townsmen were securing better charters from 
the royal government, and making use of the representation which 
they had in parliament to obtain favorable laws and attention to 
their trading and industrial interests. The fifteenth century was 
also a period when wealthy merchants were endowing many 
schools and other charities and establishing chantries. 1 Printing 

1 A chantry was an endowment to pay the expense of keeping up a shrine 
in a church and supporting one or more priests to perform service at it in 
memory of the founder. 




Edward IV (from a con- 
temporary portrait) 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 273 

was introduced into England in the middle of the reign of Edward 
IV. The king took a great interest in matters of trade as well as 
in literary advancement, and invented " benevolences," a method 
of obtaining gifts from wealthy men to take the place of taxation. 
239. Foreigners in England. — Much of the increased impor- 
tance of the towns was due to the larger amount of manu- 
facturing and of trading between different parts of England 

and between England and foreign 
countries. The actual foreign 
trade was still mostly in the hands 
of foreigners. Venetian galleys 
came almost every year to South- 
\ ampton or London to sell goods 
r 











An Old Street in the Town of Shrewsbury 

from Italy and the East, and to buy English wool and other 
articles. German traders came from the Hanseatic cities along 
the coasts of the Baltic and the North Sea, and not only traded 
at the English cities and fairs, but had permanent dwellings and 
warehouses in London, Lynn, and Boston. Flemish merchants 
carried on much of the wool trade with Flanders. Representa- 
tives of Italian and German banking companies lived in England 
and made loans to the government and to churchmen and 



274 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



noblemen. Since the reign of Edward III many weavers and 
other artisans had come from the continent to live in England, 
and from them the English were rapidly learning to be themselves 
successful in several lines of manufacturing. England had been 
backward in manufactures, commerce, and finance compared with 
other European countries, but its people were now learning from 
the foreigners who dwelt among them valuable lessons which were 
to carry them in time far beyond their teachers. 

240. Richard III and Henry VII. — When Edward IV died in 
1483 he left two young sons and a daughter. The eldest son 

was crowned king as Edward V, 
but he was soon set aside and 
probably murdered in the 
Tower of London, along with his 
brother, Richard, duke of York, 
by their uncle Richard, duke of 
Gloucester, who then made him- 
self king as Richard III. 1 

The civil war, however, was 
not even yet settled, and after 
two years a new conspiracy was 
formed and Richard in turn was 
killed on the battlefield of Bos- 
worth by Henry Tudor, earl of 
Richmond, the representative 
after the death of Henry VI of 
the old Lancastrian party. The victorious earl was crowned 
in 1485 as Henry VII. He had gained the adhesion of many 
of the Yorkist party by agreeing to marry Elizabeth, daughter 




Richard III (from a contemporary 
portrait) 



1 The murder of the two young princes was long a mystery and is not 
yet entirely clear, but twenty years after their disappearance Sir James 
Tyrrel confessed that he had secretly strangled and buried the two boys in 
the Tower, and two hundred years later two skeletons, which corresponded 
to their size, were discovered buried under the steps. 




In 



X) w 
<D O 




THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 275 

of Edward IV, and this marriage now took place. There was 
thus founded a new and great line of kings, the Tudors. So 
many and such important changes occurred during the period 
of the Tudors that by general consent it is looked upon as a new 
epoch and its history will be the subject of the next two chapters. 

The Wars of the Roses have left a dark record. There was 
no great principle for which the two parties were fighting. The 
early battles were merely to gratify the jealousy and mutual hatred 
of the great nobles, the later ones only to secure possession of 
the crown. The leaders frequently betrayed one another, and 
changed sides from motives of anger or personal ambition. Some 
of the battles were very bloody, and many captured nobles were 
put to death on the baseless charge of treason. 

There was a constant succession of confiscations of estates, 
many of the old noble families were ruined in fortune, and some 
of them were left without a single representative to continue the 
family name and title. This resulted in the weakening of the 
baronage, which, with the hearty desire of the people for peace, 
for a settled succession, and for good order, worked for the bene- 
fit of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. 

241. Summary of the Period from 1399 to 1485. — The second 
part of the Hundred Years' War, after its renewal under Henry V, 
was marked by still another brilliant victory for the English, that 
of Agincourt, in 141 5 ; and by a temporary settlement, the 
Treaty of Troyes, in 1420. But these did not prevent the final 
failure of the English effort to conquer France, and at the end of 
this period England had less territory on the continental side of 
the Channel than she had at its beginning. 

When the wars with France were over, and a weak-minded 
king was on the throne, a civil war broke out among the English 
nobility which resulted in 1461 in deposing the king and putting 
the House of York in the place of the House of Lancaster. 
There were still, however, numerous battles before the Wars of 
the Roses were closed by the final success of Henry VII in 1485 



276 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



and his marriage with Elizabeth of York, a lady who represented 
the claims of the other line. 

During this whole period the middle classes of the people both 
in the country and in the towns were steadily becoming more 
important and influential. In the succeeding period it will be 
found that the opinions and interests of these middle classes are 







The Cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral 

especially considered by the kings, and it is they who make the 
history of the time to a far greater extent than in any of the 
periods we have so far studied. 



General Reading. — Green, Short History of the English People, chap, 
v, sect. 6, and chap, vi, sects. 1-3. Ramsay, Lancaster and York (2 vols.), 
is a detailed history of this period, paying especial attention to military and 
financial matters. GAIRDNER, The Houses of Lancaster and York (Epochs 
of History), is a shorter and more well balanced work. Wylie, England 
tinder Henry LV{\ vols.), is a study of encyclopedic minuteness of that reign. 
Oman, Warwick the King-Maker, furnishes a useful clew to the Wars of the 
Roses. Kingsford, Henry V (Heroes of the Nations), is a good work. 



THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK 277 

A full study of town life is Mrs. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century. 
Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, describes some sides of history 
neglected in other works. 

Contemporary Sources. — A number of extracts from the chronicles are 
gathered in Thompson, The Wars of the Roses (English History by Con- 
temporary Writers), and Durham, English History from Original Sources, 
139Q-1485. The Paston Letters are a valuable collection of family corre- 
spondence referring to the latter part of this period. Interesting extracts 
are given in Kendall, Source-Book, No. 38, and Colby, Selections from the 
Sources, No. 47. This period, which is but briefly treated in this book, is 
more fully illustrated than some other periods by the contemporary records 
in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 164-184. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Shakespeare, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 ; Henry 
V; Henry VI, parts 1, 2, and 3; and Richard III Tire most valuable. His 
characterization of Joan of Arc, as of many other individuals, is absolutely 
without historical basis, but his insight into motives and drawing of char- 
acter are of the greatest historical value. Bulwer-Lytton, The Last of 
the Barons, Stevenson, The Black Arrow, and Church, The Chantry 
Priest of Barnet, are tales of the Wars of the Roses. Miss Yonge, The 
Caged Lion, is a good story of the earlier part of the fifteenth century. 
Drayton, The Battle of 'Agincourt ; Southey, King Henry V and the Hermit 
of Dreux, and RossetTi, The King's Tragedy, are three ballads printed in 
Bates and Co man, English History Told by English Poets. 

Special Topics. — (1) Joan of Arc, Green, Short History of the English 
People, chap, vi, sect. 1 ; (2) Caxton, ibid., chap, vii, sect. 3; (3) The Steel- 
yard in London, Pauli, Pictures from Old England, essay vi ; (4) The Later 
Lollards, Traill, Social England, Vol. II, pp. 277-293 ; (5) Magic and 
Sorcery, ibid., pp. 370-375 ; (6) The Towns in the Fifteenth Century, ibid., 
pp. 407-413 ; (7) Parliament in the Fifteenth Century, Montague, Consti- 
tutional History, chap, vii ; (8) The Treaty of Troyes, Kingsford, Henry V^ 
pp. 300-308. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD. 1485-1558 

242. Henry VII. — The reigns of the new line of kings fall in 
so exactly with a number of very important changes affecting the 
history of the whole people that the name of the Tudor family 
is quite naturally applied to this period. To this dynasty belonged 
five sovereigns who reigned altogether for somewhat more than a 
century. The reigns of four of them fall within the period covered 
by this chapter. 1 

The title of Henry VII, who had been crowned on the battle- 
field of Bosworth, was not a very clear one. It was, however, 
accepted by parliament and by public opinion, and was made 
stronger by his marriage with Elizabeth of York, daughter of 
Edward IV. Nevertheless Henry had to put down four separate 



1 The descent and relationships of the Tudor family were as follows 

Edward III, 1327-1377 

John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster 

Margaret Beaufort, m. Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond 

Henry VII, 1485-1509, m. Elizabeth of York 



I 

Arthur, 

died 1502, 

m. Catherine of 

Aragon 



Mary 
I553-IS58 



Elizabeth 
1 558-1603 



1 I 

Henry VIII, 1509-1547 Margaret, 

m. (1) Catherine of m. James IV 

Aragon of Scotland 
m. (2) Anne Boleyn 
m - (3) Jane Seymour James V of 

m. (4) Anne of Scotland 

Cleves I 

m. (5) Catherine Mary, 

Howard Queen of Scots 

m.(6) Catherine 
Parr 



11 



[5 8 7 



Edward VI, 
1547-1553 



executed 

James VI of 

Scotland and 

I of England, 

1603-1625 



Mary, m. (1) Louis XII of 
France 
m. (2) Charles Brandon, 
I duke of Suffolk 
Frances, m. Henry Grey, 
I marquis of 
Dorset 
Lady Jane Grey, 
executed 1554 



278 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



279 



armed rebellions, two of which threatened to drive him from the 
throne. Two years after his coronation he was confronted by a 
serious revolt headed by a certain impostor named Lambert Sim- 
nel, who claimed to be nephew of Edward IV and true heir to the 
crown. A bloody battle was fought at Stoke in which many of the 
leaders were killed and the pretender captured. Henry in derision 
made him a scullion in the palace kitchen. The second attempt 
was still more threatening but not more successful. A Fleming 
named Perkin Warbeck was carefully trained to personate Richard, 
duke of York, younger son of Edward IV, who had really been mur- 
dered in the Tower. For several years he passed from one Euro- 
pean court to another, acknowledged by those sovereigns who were 
hostile to Henry, and 
keeping the English 
king in constant fear 
of invasion. One 
after another of these 
dangers was, how- 
ever, avoided by 
Henry's diplomacy 
or concessions, and 
when Warbeck finally 
invaded England in 

1497 it was with a volunteer force which soon melted away and 
left him in Henry's power. He was imprisoned in the Tower 
and after an attempt to escape was hanged. 

Henry VII had two sons, Arthur and Henry, and two daughters, 
Margaret and Mary. They were all married in such a way as to 
strengthen his position abroad and prevent help being given to 
claimants to his crown. He arranged a marriage between Arthur 
and Catherine, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and 
queen of Aragon and Castile. Arthur died a few months after 
his wedding, but it was arranged that Catherine should remain in 
England as the future bride of the king's second son, Henry. 





Sovereign of Henry VII, showing the "Tudor 
Rose," the Emblem of the Combined Houses 
of York and Lancaster 



280 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Margaret went to Scotland as the wife of King James IV. The 
youngest daughter Mary was only a child at her father's death, 
but the same policy was carried out later by her brother, who gave 
her hand to the king of France, as pledge of an alliance with that 
country. 

Henry VII was a self-controlled, clear-sighted, and able man. 
He was hard-working, shrewd, and persevering. He was more a 
man of business than former kings had been and devoted himself 
largely to the practical work of statesmanship. He obtained the 
help also of capable and devoted ministers. The ablest of these 
was old Cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, who had held 
office under Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III. He served 
Henry as lord chancellor and was his most trusted adviser during 
most of his reign. To the wisdom, judgment, experience, and 
skill in statecraft of Cardinal Morton most of the success of the 
new government was due. Henry chose his other ministers also 
not from the high nobility, but wherever he could find men of 
sufficient ability. 

243. The Preservation of Order. — Henry came to the throne 
determined to keep good order in his kingdom. Lawlessness had 
been too common in England during the Wars of the Roses, and 
he showed from the very, beginning of his reign that he intended 
to insist on a new standard of peace and good behavior. Not 
only were all revolts put down with a heavy hand, and their leaders 
executed, but one by one all possible rivals to the throne were put 
to death. Both Henry VII and his successor were determined 
that there should be no more Wars of the Roses. 1 These execu- 
tions were brought about by regular process of law, after the 
offenders had laid themselves open in each case to a charge of 

1 The persons of royal blood who were thus executed were, in the reign 
of Henry VII, the earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward IV : in the reign of 
Henry VIII, the duke of Buckingham, great-great-grandson of Edward III ; 
the marquis of Exeter, a grandson ; Lord Montague, a great-nephew ; and 
the countess of Salisbury, a niece of Edward IV. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



28l 



treason ; but they were brought to trial at the instance of the 
king, and the condemnation and execution that invariably followed 
were in accordance with the king's wishes and interests. It is 
doubtful whether any one of these executions would have taken 
place if the king had not been known to wish it. 

Next the nobility was reduced in importance. The part which 
the great nobles had played in the government ever since Saxon 
times was now over. So many noble families had been destroyed 
in the Wars of the Roses, so many estates had been forfeited to 
the crown, and so power- 
ful was the king, that the 
landed nobility were no 
longer able by their great 
numbers and possessions to 
overawe the crown. 

244. Court of Star Cham- 
ber. — Means were also 
taken to prevent the lesser 
disturbances through the 
country for which the 
nobles and gentry were 
responsible. The king 
forced them all, when they 
came to parliament, to bind 
themselves by an oath to keep the old laws against livery and 
maintenance, not to hire armed followers who should wear their 
badges, and not to interfere with the action of the regular courts. 
In 1487 a law was passed giving a stronger organization to the 
Court of Star Chamber. The law provided for the appointment 
of certain members of the privy council who were to act as 
an extraordinary court taking charge of several kinds of cases 
which the ordinary courts had not been strong enough to settle. 
Its duties were the punishment of persons who kept large bands 
of armed retainers, those who bribed or threatened sheriffs or 




Henry VII (from a contemporary portrait) 



282 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

jurymen, and those who took part in riots or other unlawful 
gatherings. This group of councilors held its sessions in the 
room in the palace of Westminster known as the "Star Chamber," 
and got its name from this circumstance. As it sat at the capital 
of the kingdom, as it had all the authority of the king immediately 
behind it, as well as the authorization of parliament, and as it was 
not limited by such strict rules of procedure as the ordinary 
courts, it was able to exercise a great deal of power which the 
other courts of law did not possess. 

245. Strong Monarchy This creation of what has been called 

a " strong monarchy " was one of the constant objects of Henry's 
policy. He succeeded in creating what was practically an absolute 
rule. He not only strengthened the law courts but made every 
effort to arrange the income and expenditure of the government 
in such a manner that he should always have enough money when 
it was needed. All the old sources of income, — crown lands, 
feudal dues, customs duties, and parliamentary grants were made 
as productive as possible. The whole country was growing richer 
and the good order kept everywhere made it possible to collect 
larger amounts from these sources than had been possible before. 
While the income of the government was in these ways in- 
creased, the king watched expenditures carefully. Exact accounts 
from all officials were insisted upon, foreign wars were carefully 
avoided, and many other expenses reduced. In addition to these 
\ legitimate financial reforms, Henry adopted various irregular expe- 
dients for raising money, such as benevolences and the infliction 
of heavy money fines upon men who had unwittingly violated obso- 
lete statutes. " Morton's fork " became a famous form of dilemma. 
Henry's minister of that name frequently intimated to persons 
who lived extravagantly that it was evident that those who spent 
so much could readily afford to make a gift to the king ; while he 
informed those who lived frugally that it was evident that they 
who spent so little must have something from which they could 
make a gift to the king. By these various means the financial 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



283 



'West 5 from Greenwich 5~ 




Scale oLMiles. 



Map of Towns and Counties 



284 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

condition of the government became so strong that the king was 
able to pay regular expenses out of regular income, and yet spend 
large sums at certain times when they were needed without exhaust- 
ing the treasury, which was full at the time of his death. 

246. Decrease of the Power of Parliament. — By his financial 
independence the king was freed from the necessity of calling 
parliament for the purpose of obtaining grants of money, as his 
predecessors had done. It was therefore summoned much less 
frequently than before, meeting only five times during his whole 
reign, and only once during its last twelve years. Even when it 
did meet it was much under the king's influence. In the House 
of Commons a member who was also an official of the king 
was usually chosen speaker and through him the king's wishes 
were carried out. The laws which were favored by the king were 
in most cases those which were favorable to the interests of the 
middle classes who elected the members of the House of Com- 
mons. Thus parliament interfered very little with the government 
of the king, and showed itself ready and willing to follow the 
suggestions made to it by his ministers. 

247. The Merchant Adventurers and Other English Traders. — 
Clothed with these high powers and served by able officials the 
government of Henry VII turned its attention to the regulation 
of a great many things which had been disregarded by the govern- 
ment before this time. One of the directions in which this was 
most successfully done was in the encouragement of foreign trade. 
It has already been explained that English trade, although large 
in amount, was carried on almost altogether by foreigners. In all 
treaties with other countries into which Henry now entered he 
arranged that English traders should be admitted there for the 
purpose of selling and buying goods. An instance of this policy 
was the Intercursus Magnus, made in 1496 with the duke of 
Burgundy, to admit English goods into the Netherlands. He 
encouraged all English companies of merchants which were 
formed to take part in foreign trade. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 285 

There had been for a century and more, in the Netherlands, an 
organization of English merchants known as the " Merchant Adven- 
turers," engaged mainly in the sale of English woolen cloth. This 
trade was steadily increasing, but the merchants were loosely organ- 
ized and had few powers from the home government to regulate 
the affairs of their trade. They attracted the attention of Henry, 
and were by him given the right to have a company seal and 
coat of arms of their own and granted a new charter giving them 
complete control over the affairs of their trade abroad and even 
in England. At the same time foreigners coming to trade in 
England were deprived of the privileges which they had formerly 
possessed and found opposition instead of encouragement from 
the English government. There were many commercial changes 
in progress. ^Fhe conquests of the Turks in the eastern Mediter- 
ranean had cut off the old routes to India, and Portugal had dis- 
covered a new one around the Cape of Good Hope. Both the 
Venetian galleys and the Hanse vessels came less frequently and 
in smaller numbers to England. English traders, on the other 
hand, were going with their vessels in constantly larger numbers 
to the ports on the Mediterranean and Baltic seas and to the 
shores of the continent directly opposite England. 

248. The New World. — This interest in commercial life was 
leading Englishmen to join in the explorations which were then 
being made not only by the Portuguese but by several other 
nations. The seaport of Bristol was the center of English activ- 
ity in this direction. Columbus visited it some years before he 
set out on his successful voyage, and several early but fruitless 
expeditions in search of new lands were sent out from that city. 
Settled at Bristol was a Venetian merchant named John Cabot, 
with his three sons. Cabot had either thought out for himself or 
gained from Columbus the idea of sailing westward to reach the 
great spice-producing lands of Asia. In 1496 Henry gave him 
permission to organize an expedition under the English flag and to 
take possession in the name of the king of England of any lands 



286 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

he might discover. The expedition sailed in 1497 and during 
a three months' trip discovered and explored the coast of Lab- 
rador and brought back a map of the discoveries. In Henry's 
diary is recorded a gift of ^"io "to hym that founde the new 
Isle." Afterwards new expeditions and voyages of discovery from 
Bristol were made from time to time, but they had little success. 
They were in search either of riches in the lands that they first 
reached, or of a passage beyond them to the East Indies. In the 
parts of America to which the voyage directly westward from Eng- 
land brought them, they found nothing of the former, and in seek- 
ing a northwest passage they only pressed deeper and deeper into 
the ice-bound regions of northern America. Nevertheless, from 
this time forward England had a new interest and new ambitions 
in the unknown western world. 

249. The Renaissance. — The age of Henry VII was a time of 
great intellectual awakening. Much of this was due to the influ- 
ence of Italy. In that country there had been during the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries a new and lively interest in many 
lines of study and art, and a great development of learning, litera- 
ture, painting, sculpture, and building. This is called the " Re- 
naissance," that is, the new birth of the interests, knowledge, and 
ideas which the Romans and Greeks of antiquity had possessed. 
From Italy these intellectual interests gradually spread to other 
countries. Many young Englishmen went to Italy to travel or 
study and came home imbued with the ideas prevalent there. 
They brought back with them books on a variety of subjects in 
which Englishmen had previously taken little interest. Some 
learned Italians came to England to visit or to settle, and they 
also spread the same love for and interest in classical learning. 
One of the men who exercised the strongest influence in England 
was Erasmus, a great Dutch scholar who was familiar with all the 
new Italian and the older classical learning and came to England 
for the first time in 1498, having been invited by a young English 
nobleman whom he had met at Paris. He visited England again 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



287 



and again in after years, kept up a correspondence with several 
learned Englishmen, and took an active part in the discussions of 
the time. 

250. Humanism in England. — As a result of this awakened 
attention to ancient forms of learning, several new subjects "came 
to be studied at the universities. Three men, Grocyn, Linacre, 
and Colet, who had all studied in Italy, taught Greek at Oxford from 
1494 onward, and also gave instruction in other subjects, such as 
medicine and philosophy, to which the Greek language served as 




Tomb of Dr. Yonge, Rolls Office, London (in the Italian style) 



an introduction, and to which it gave a new interest. These men, 
by their enthusiasm, imparted to their students a love of the Latin 
and Greek languages, and a desire to become familiar with the 
works of the ancient authors who had written in them. This study 
of the classical authors and of their language and their writings, 
which is characteristic of all Europe during this period, is spoken 
of as " humanism." The special form it took in England is often 
called the "new learning." Many men who had never been 
abroad became equally earnest devotees of this new learning. 
Thomas More was one of the most gifted and learned of these. 
He studied at Oxford and always afterward remained on terms of 



288 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

friendship and kept up his intercourse with the group of learned 
men who were there at that time. 

Most of these men were not only students but reformers, anxious 
to improve the condition of the world, to spread education more, 
widely, to improve the schools, to bring about a cessation of wars, 
to abolish unjust and unwise laws, and to make men more broad- 
minded and liberal in their feelings and actions. Soon after the 
death of Henry VII, More wrote a book in Latin, which he called 
Utopia, or " Nowhere," in which he called attention to many of 
the bad conditions existing in Europe at that time, and then 
described a fictitious country in which all these evils had been 
remedied. The criticism was too outspoken for him to venture 
to publish his book in England or to issue it in the language of 
the people. It was published on the continent and remained long 
untranslated. In some directions, however, reforms were intro- 
duced of the sort that More advocated. Several new professor- 
ships and some new colleges were endowed at the universities. 
Linacre became tutor to the prince of Wales, and physician to the 
king, and exercised a strong influence for good over them. John 
Colet was appointed dean of St. Paul's at London, where he 
founded St. Paul's school, by his private means, and introduced 
into it new methods of teaching and more enlightened ideas. 
New text-books were prepared for the boys, and men interested in 
humanistic studies were appointed as their teachers. There was 
more effort co rouse their interest, and less dependence was placed 
on whipping. Many other schools were also founded at about this 
time, and it became a nearly universal custom for boys and girls 
of the higher and middle classes to be well educated. 

251. The Introduction of Printing into England. — The inven- 
tion of printing had been one of the products of the Renaissance. 
From the German city of Mainz the new invention had been car- 
ried far and wide. In 1476 William Caxton ; an Englishman, who 
had learned to print in the Netherlands from one of the early 
printers there, brought a press and type to England and set up 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 289 

a small printing establishment in a building which he was allowed 
by Edward IV to use at Westminster. Here he proceeded to print 
books, for which there proved to be an abundant demand. Before 
his death, in 149 1, he had printed Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 
and many other English poems, chronicles, and works translated 
from the French and Latin. Meanwhile several other printing 
presses had been established in England. The writings of the 
men of the new learning, and the works of the classical authors 
whom they so much admired, could now be printed and circulated 
comparatively cheaply and abundantly, instead of being only slowly 
and expensively copied by hand as in earlier times. This cheap- 
ness and abundance of books increased still further the extension 

€C 5%n5%8 ant> tranftaWi out af fm# m to cnglpffk ft* 
toitj Dag o£3upn tfc geit of out tot* #) titj C i?S£t>j / an& 

Crti tyegj Dag of ffjage afftr/ «ff 

Haue&eo 

Specimen of Caxton's Printing in the Year 1486 

of education, and spread the habit of reading among a far wider 
class of the people than before. The language was also reduced 
to much greater uniformity by the work of Caxton and the other 
early printers. 

252. Accession of Henry VIII. — When Henry VII died, in 1509, 
his son, Henry VIII, came into a rich inheritance. The dispute 
about the succession to the throne had been settled, the king's 
position was independent and powerful, the treasury was well filled, 
the country was at peace, and there was a great and spreading 
interest in trade, manufactures, learning, education, and art. 

Henry VIII was well suited to these times. He was only 
eighteen years old, but he was well grown and handsome, a fine 
rider, runner, sportsman, and swordsman, well educated, and on 



290 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



intimate terms with the best men of the time. He was more open- 
handed, hearty, and good-humored than his father, and he came to 
the throne without any bad memories Of struggle behind him. 
" Bluff King Hal," the nickname by which he has been called, 
reflects his manner and his popularity, during the earlier part of 
his reign at least. He married his widowed sister-in-law, Catherine 
of Aragon, immediately after his accession. His reign lasted for 
thirty-eight years, until 1547. This period may very well be divided 
into two parts : the early years, in which the principal events were 

those gathering around the 
policy of the great minister 
Wolsey; and the later years, 
in which the great change 
known as the Reformation was 
in progress. 

253. Wolsey. — During the 
first fifteen years of his reign, 
Henry took comparatively lit- 
tle part in the work of the 
government. Like his father 
he chose able men for his 
ministers, and one of these 
soon came into practically 
complete control of affairs. This was Thomas Wolsey. He was 
the son of a merchant of Ipswich, 1 was educated at Oxford, 
became a clergyman, acted as tutor to the sons of a nobleman, 
traveled on the continent, and then came to the court of Henry 
VII, where he was employed in various services. 

When Henry VIII succeeded to the throne he found Wolsey, 
acting as king's almoner, a member of the council, and the most 
active and able of the ministers and advisers who had been in his 

1 According to an old but apparently mistaken tradition his father was 
a butcher. His low birth was a cause of reproach and difficulty to him at 
the time. 




Cardinal Wolsey 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 291 

father's service. He was almost twenty years older than the young 
king, and was eloquent, witty, full of ideas, and clear and bold in 
the expression of them. He was ready to take part in anything 
that needed to be done, whether it was to plan a campaign or to 
arrange a dance or banquet. 

Wolsey obtained almost complete influence over Henry, and 
for many years he was the most trusted adviser of the king and in 
many ways the practical head of the government. He was a man 
born to command, and he forced his will upon every one but the 
king. To him he was ever, in case of a difference of opinion, the 
submissive servant, or at most the cautious adviser. He obtained 
a long series of promotions and offices which brought him an enor- 
mous income. The most important of these appointments were lord 
chancellor, archbishop of York, cardinal, and legate of the pope. 
He thus held the highest position possible for an English subject in 
the state and, except the archbishopric of Canterbury, in the church, 
besides receiving the income from various bishoprics, abbeys, and 
other offices. He lived in a style to correspond to his position, 
having from two hundred to six hundred persons in various posi- 
tions as servants or officials, wearing the most gorgeous of robes, 
and giving the most magnificent banquets and entertainments. ** 

Wolsey's life was a very busy one, fulfilling his duties as lord 
chancellor, sitting as a member of the Court of Star Chamber, 
holding conferences with foreign ambassadors, reading and dic- 
tating letters, attending to the manifold interests of his position 
as a minister and churchman, and spending besides much time 
with the king at his business or at his pleasures. His haughty 
manners and arbitrary actions and the contrast between his low 
origin and the lofty height to which he had risen made him 
extremely unpopular with the nobles, the lawyers, and many 
other influential persons; but so long as the king favored him 
his power was almost as unlimited as that of the king himself. 

254. Foreign Wars. — The hope of the reformers of the time, 
that universal peace could be brought about, — a hope shared 



292 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

by Colet, Erasmus, More, and even Wolsey, — was sadly disap- 
pointed. Not only were there great wars between France, Spain, 
and many lesser states of the continent, but the English king and 
the nobles were not willing to look on and take no part in them. 
Several times during this period English troops fought again in 
France, as they had not done since the close of the Hundred 
Years' War, and Wolsey and the king were continually engaged 
in arranging and rearranging alliances. In 1520 Charles V of 
Spain visited England to knit still closer with Henry the bonds 
which had bound their predecessors in an alliance. 

A similar conference between Henry and Francis I, king of 
France, occurred on the borders of the English possessions in 
France in the same year at a place then described as the " Field 
of the Cloth of Gold." For weeks before the meeting workmen 
were busied in erecting temporary buildings for the two monarchs 
and their courts. These were provided with the most gorgeous 
furniture, hung and covered with the richest tapestry of silk and 
cloth of gold and silver. Then for two weeks the two kings held 
court there, and, with a vast company of noblemen, gentlemen, 
and ladies attending on the two queens, feasted and held tourna- 
ments, gave magnificent entertainments, and exchanged visits, 
while the ministers prepared a new treaty. 

England's position in foreign affairs seemed to be a high one, 
for her alliance was continually sought ; but her allies had their 
own objects and when they obtained these were willing to give 
up her friendship. The English therefore obtained little but hol- 
low glory and a slight extension of the territory around Calais, 
while the cost of war preparations, along with the other expen- 
sive habits of the king and court, used up all the money which 
Henry VII had saved, and threw into disorder the arrangement of 
the finances which he had with so much difficulty perfected. 

255. The Amicable Loan. — Parliament was called very sel- 
dom and the taxes and loans it authorized were soon expended. 
Therefore, when the king and his advisers determined on a new 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



293 



war and invasion of France, the government demanded what was 
called an "amicable loan." This was a loan which each man was 
urged to make, in proportion to his property, with but small 
probability of its ever being paid back. ' The effort to collect it 
caused such great complaint and even resistance on the part of 
the people that the attempt was given up. Wolsey as usual took 
upon himself the responsibility for having suggested the loan and 
obtained the hatred of the 
people for it. The king's 
own popularity with all 
classes during the whole 
of this period of his reign 
remained boundless. 

256. The Divorce Ques- 
tion. — By 1527, however, 
a new question was arising 
which was destined not only 
to occupy much of the pri- 
vate thoughts and interests 
of the king for several years, 
but to exercise an enormous 
influence upon the history 
of the whole nation. 
Henry's wife, it will be re- 
membered, was Catherine 
of Aragon, who had been first married to his older brother Arthur 
just before that prince's death. According to the canon law a man 
was not allowed to marry his brother's widow. The pope, how- 
ever, was generally considered to have in special cases a right to 
suspend the canon law in respect to marriage, if there was sufficient 
reason for doing so, and Henry VII had obtained from him a dis- 
pensation which permitted the marriage of Henry and Catherine 
to take place. Moreover, for many years the marriage was in the 
main a happy one. But all the children which were born died 




Henry VIII 



294 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

successively, except one, Mary, a delicate little girl. Gradually 
Henry began to feel some doubts as to whether his marriage to 
his brother's widow had really been lawful. He was extremely 
anxious to have a son to inherit the throne after him, and he 
feared that the death of his children might be a judgment of God 
upon him for marrying against the laws which religion laid down. 
He therefore began to think of separating himself from Catherine. 

At about the same time 'he fell deeply in love with Anne 
Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine's ladies of honor. Which of 
these sentiments, doubt as to the legality of his first marriage or 
the wish to form a second one, came first will never be known. 
Probably Henry himself did not know. But he soon asked from 
Wolsey and others whether his marriage had been legal or not. 
The whole question depended of course on whether the pope had 
been justified in the first place in giving the dispensation from 
ordinary canon law when it was asked for by Henry's father. If 
so, Catherine was legally his wife and he could not marry again 
during her lifetime. If not, she had never been his wife accord- 
ing to law, and he was at liberty to marry some one else if he 
chose. Whatever may have been his original conscientious 
scruples, Henry's sole wish soon came to be to obtain a divorce 
from Catherine and to marry Anne Boleyn. To this object he 
devoted his thoughts and directed his policy for several years. 
W 7 ith all his brilliant gifts, his abilities, and his popularity, Henry 
was absolutely selfish and heartless ; and no consideration of old 
affection, honor, or duty could deter him from an end on which he 
had set his heart. 

257. Fall of Wolsey. — Various efforts were made to obtain a 
decision by the church authorities in the divorce case. It was 
necessary to refer the question to Rome, as the papal tribunal was 
the court which gave decisions on the law of marriage. Under 
the laws of the church, however, even the pope himself could 
not grant a divorce for any cause whatever if the king's mar- 
riage to Catherine had been valid. Year after year now passed by 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



295 



and the question remained unsettled. The king, becoming suspi- 
cious that Wolsey was not doing all he could to have the matter 
settled, gradually gave less of his confidence to his great minister, 
and finally in 1529 removed him from his offices and allowed an 
action of Praemunire to be brought against him for violations of 
the law while in office. 1 In the hope that submission would ward 
off further penalties, Wolsey signed a general confession and 




Part of the Palace of Hampton Court (built by Cardinal Wolsey 
and presented to Henry VIII) 



acknowledgment that his life and property were at the disposal of 
the king. Henry with his usual heartlessness seized the property 
of his fallen minister and ordered him to retire to his religious 
duties. There are few greater contrasts in history than that 
between the middle and the last years of the great cardinal. 

1 Wolsey had accepted from the pope an appointment as legate and had 
acted on its authority in several matters in England. He had thus laid 
himself open to a charge under the old statutes of Praemunire. See p. 243. 



296 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Living in splendor equal to that of a king, commanding the ser- 
vices of officers and dependents by the hundred, occupied with 
vast plans of administration and reform in his own country, and 
holding in his hands the threads of a diplomacy that extended 
throughout Europe, he was the greatest man in England, save 
the king alone. Then, deprived in a day of all offices except 
those which came to him from the church, and almost impover- 
ished, he retired, stunned by the withdrawal of the king's support, 
to a little country house just outside of London, whence he soon 
started on the long journey to York, which was his see as arch- 
bishop. In less than a year, in 1530, a second blow fell and he 
was summoned southward again to be tried for treason. Sick and 
weary he made his way by slow stages toward London till, unable 
to proceed farther, he stopped at the abbey of Leicester and died 
there within a few days. 

258. Submission of the Clergy. — Henry still put pressure 
upon the pope to give a favorable decision in the divorce case. 
He sent embassy after embassy to him, appealed to the univer- 
sities of Europe to give an opinion on the matter, threatened to 
cut off the payments made to the pope from England, and to 
put an end to the papal right of appointment and other forms 
of his ecclesiastical authority. The king also strengthened his 
power over English churchmen and the weight of his threats 
against the pope by causing suit to be brought against the clergy 
for illegal obedience to Wolsey when he acted' as papal legate. 
By holding a prosecution for Praemunire over their heads he 
induced the convocation of the clergy in 1531 to pay a heavy fine, 
to acknowledge that the king was supreme head of the church 
as well as of the civil, government in England, to hand over to 
the king for revision the canons of the church, and to promise 
that they would enact no new canons without his consent. This 
action is known as the "Submission of the Clergy." But even yet 
the pope gave no decision on the divorce question, although the 
pressure from the emperor had been removed. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 297 

259. Subserviency of Parliament. — In 1529 the king called a 
new meeting of parliament. At this time the House of Lords was 
made up of noblemen, bishops, and abbots, most of whom had 
been raised to their high position by Henry or his father; the House 
of Commons consisted of lawyers, merchants, and country gen- 
tlemen, many of whom had been nominated as members by the 
privy council and all of whom belonged to the middle classes, 
which had been so much favored by the policy of the Tudor sov- 
ereigns. Their respect for the crown was therefore very great, 
their devotion to the king unlimited. They were naturally in- 
clined, therefore, to follow the king's lead and meet his wishes. 
Even if they had not felt so well disposed toward him resistance 
would have been difficult. The power of the crown had been 
rising so rapidly under Henry VII and Henry VIII that obedience 
had become a habit. The interest of parliament in religion, on 
the other hand, was very slight. The sixteenth century in England 
was a period of much greater interest in trade, agriculture, and 
manufactures, in learning, art, and travel, than in religion. 

Parliament was therefore ready to pass willingly enough almost 
any laws on church matters that the king chose to ask from it. 
A weapon was provided to the hand of Henry by which, as he 
believed, he could force the pope to grant him his wishes. 

260. The Foundations of the Reformation. — But other motives 
were influencing king, parliament, and people, and making changes 
in the old religious system inevitable, quite apart from the personal 
designs of the king and the subserviency of parliament. 

First, the civil government both of king and parliament had 
been rising steadily above the ecclesiastical power. Men were 
no longer willing to give to churchmen so high a position or such 
wide powers as they had held during the middle ages. The first 
step of the English Reformation was to consist in reducing the 
church to a distinctly inferior position. Secondly, it was a time 
when men were influenced by strong feelings of national pride and 
independence. There was a growing dislike of foreign interference 



298 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

or control, a growing desire to settle all English questions in 
England. A prohibition of the pope's interference in the govern- 
ment of the English church was therefore a natural and popular 
measure. Thirdly, it was a time when many changes were in prog- 
ress. Methods of farming and manufacturing, houses, clothes, 
food, — all were changing. It was easy for changes to take place 
in religion also. Therefore the alterations introduced by Henry 
VIII, although directed in the first place toward his personal ends, 
were in many cases the natural outcome of the conditions of the 
time and would have soon occurred even without his action. 

261. The Reformation Statutes. — The parliament which met 
in 1529 and sat in successive sessions for seven years has been 
called the " Reformation Parliament." It began by making a 
number of complaints of excessive fees in church courts and other 
abuses in the church, and with the king's consent passed laws 
to correct them. Its most important acts, however, were those 
directed against the authority of the pope over the church in 
England. Two "Acts of Annates " were passed in 1532 and 1534 
cutting off all money payments from the English clergy to the 
pope. In 1533 the "Act of Appeals" was passed forbidding for 
the future any appeals from the church courts in England to the 
papal court, even in cases of canon law. In 1534 a law was passed 
putting the nomination of bishops in the hands of the king and 
forbidding any communication with the pope. In 1534 the "Act 
of Supremacy " was passed giving Henry the title of " Supreme 
Head on earth of the Church of England," and giving him the 
same power to regulate the church of England that he already 
possessed to regulate civil affairs. Several other laws were passed 
transferring powers formerly exercised by the pope either to the 
king or to English church officials, and it was ordered that the 
pope should be referred to as the " bishop of Rome," and should 
have no more power in England than any other foreign bishop. 
One by one the bonds which had united the church of England 
with the papacy through many previous Christian centuries haG 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 299 

now been broken, until there was no connection remaining. The 
laws which were passed between 1530 and 1535 divided it as an 
organization from the general body of the Christian church in the 
west of Europe and made it a distinct national body. 

In the process of bringing about this separation the English 
church had been completely subordinated to the king. Its bishops 
were named by him, its laws could only be adopted with his con- 
sent, his supremacy over it had been formally acknowledged. It 
was not only a national church but a national church under the 
control of the king. 

262. Decay of the Monasteries. — Other changes were bound 
to follow upon these. The monasteries were peculiarly open to 
attack. Of these groups of monks or nuns of various orders, each 
with its buildings and landed property, some had been founded 
in the earliest days of Christianity in England, and had existed, 
therefore, for many hundred years ; while others had been founded 
from time to time during all the intervening centuries. Some 
were large and wealthy, while others were of every size, oftentimes 
mere "cells" or branch establishments where only two or three 
persons were sent from one of the larger houses to live together. 
They had had a great history. For a long period they had been 
prosperous and respected, and had attracted within their walls or 
educated in their midst learned, pious, and useful men and women. 
But there is little doubt that this period of prosperity and useful- 
ness was to a great extent past. Many of the monastic houses 
were in a bad financial condition. Their lands were mortgaged, 
their income had decreased, and their buildings were out of repair. 
The class of men and women who sought admittance to them was 
not so high as it had been. There were many ways now in which 
a man might live a life of intellectual employment as a teacher, 
lawyer, writer, or otherwise without becoming a monk. The 
belief that a religious life could best be led by withdrawing from 
the active world and giving one's self to prayers, devotional 
exercises, and self-denial had long been dying out. There was 



300 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

much to criticise in the actual life led by the monks. Their 
idleness was evident. The old laws requiring labor, study, and 
other services from them were but poorly enforced. Many stories, 
some of them no doubt false, others true, were told of bad lives 
led by monks and nuns under the protection of their privileged 
position and religious reputation. They were probably no worse 
than other men and women of their time, but they were probably 
not conspicuously better, while more might fairly be expected of 
them. 

Many bishops and archbishops tried to improve the declining 
condition of the monasteries. Others, like Wolsey, had obtained 
permission from the king and the pope to take the property from 
some of the poorest and smallest of them and to use it for the 
founding of schools, colleges, and hospitals. 

263. Cromwell and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. — Henry 
and his ministers now followed a bolder plan, and one more attrac- 
tive to the avarice of the king. Since the fall of Wolsey the prin- 
cipal adviser of the king had been Thomas Cromwell, a man who 
had been one of Wolsey's officers, was familiar with business 
methods, had traveled much abroad, had read much, was deter- 
mined, unscrupulous, and devoted to the service of the king. 
Henry and Cromwell had little respect or consideration for the 
monasteries, feared their devotion to the pope, and were eager 
besides to get possession of their property to meet the needs of the 
government. Henry determined, therefore, to bring about their 
suppression and the confiscation to the crown of their lands and 
other property. 

To do this Cromwell, who had been appointed by the king 
vicar-general in ecclesiastical affairs to exercise the power of reg- 
ulation of the church granted to the king by the Act of Suprem- 
acy, made use of the floating stories and charges of immorality 
made against some of the monasteries. He sent out a group 
of commissioners, professedly to inquire into the condition of 
the monasteries and report upon them, but really instructed to 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



301 



bring back sufficient charges against them to justify their sup- 
pression. This was done and parliament was in 1536 induced 
to pass a law confiscating the property and dissolving the organ- 
ization of more than three hundred of the smaller monasteries. 
Some of the larger abbeys were then attacked on the ground of 
the treason of their abbots or inmates. Still others were forced 




Ruins of the Abbey of St. Mary at York 

or persuaded to dissolve themselves and hand over their property 
to the king, and finally in 1540 all the remaining monasteries 
were suppressed. 

The gold, silver, and precious stones in their possession were 
taken to the royal treasury ; the lead, stone, and glass of the roofs, 
walls, and windows were sold as building materials ; and the lands 
taken into the possession of the government and sold or given 
away at nominal prices to courtiers or noblemen and gentlemen 
whom the king wished to favor. The monks and nuns were in 
some cases sent to live with their friends, in others given a gov- 
ernment pension, and in still others appointed to various offices 



302 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



in the church. The abbots of course ceased to be members of 
the House of Lords. The dissolution of the monasteries was 
probably a desirable measure, but the way in which it was carried 
out was none the less shameful. 

264. Destruction of Relics and Shrines. — In the monasteries 
had been many shrines, 1 relics, and wonder-working images, to 
which pilgrimages had been made for centuries. But venera- 
tion for these on the part of the people had long been waning. 
Many of the more intelligent of the clergy and laity alike dis- 
believed in any benefits or special merits to be obtained from 

worshiping at the 
shrines, and doubted 
the genuineness or the 
sanctity of the relics. 
When the monasteries 
were destroyed, there- 
fore, the shrines also 
were dismantled, their 
ornaments seized by the 
government, and they 
and their contents alike 
destroyed. The bones 
of St. Thomas of Canterbury, objects of pious veneration for almost 
four centuries, were burned and scattered. Other relics likewise 
were destroyed, in many cases having been first tested and shown 
to be fraudulent in the sight of the people. Wooden images of the 
Virgin Mary and of the saints were in many cases cut to pieces 
and burned. Pilgrimages to sacred places were also forbidden, on 
the ground that they were superstitious and disorderly. 




Shrine of St. Thomas of Hereford 



1 Shrines were stone burial vaults built above ground, often beautifully 
ornamented with gold and precious stones, in which the remains of the 
founder of the abbey or of some other saint were preserved. Relics were 
parts of the body of some saint or martyr, or objects made sacred by having 
been used by them during life or blessed since death. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 303 

265. Execution of More and Fisher. — These changes were not 
carried through without opposition. When Henry's antagonism 
to the pope became manifest, Sir Thomas More, who had been 
in the service of the crown for many years and had become lord 
chancellor on Wolsey's downfall, resigned in 1532. The Act of 
Supremacy provided that an oath to accept and abide by it 
should be taken by every one who should be asked to do so, and 
that a refusal to take the oath should be considered treason. 
When More was asked to take this oath he refused, on grounds of 
conscience ; and Fisher, the aged bishop of Rochester, another 
old friend of Henry, did the same. They were both brought to 
trial and beheaded as traitors, to the astonishment and disapproval 
of all Europe. Many others, including a number of prominent 
ecclesiastics, were executed for treason on the same grounds in 
the year 1535. The pope in retaliation excommunicated Henry 
and declared him deposed from the throne. Such a sentence, 
which three hundred years before had humbled King John, had 
now but little meaning in England, and there was no serious 
probability of any regard being paid to it. 

266. The Pilgrimage of Grace. — Yet among both the gentry 
and the masses of the people, especially in the more distant parts 
of the country, the abolition of the pope's authority, the dissolu- 
tion of the monasteries, and the tyranny of Cromwell, led to more 
than one rebellion. They were directed not so much against the 
king as against his ministers, but as there was no standing army 
in England they were a great danger to the government. The 
greatest of these risings was a revolt in Lincolnshire and York- 
shire, in 1536, called the " Pilgrimage of Grace." The king was 
forced to promise to consider the petitions of the rebels in a new 
parliament to meet in the north, and to grant pardon to them 
for their rebellion. But other questions besides the religious one 
were mingled with the grievances of the people, and the rebels 
divided on these and ceased to be dangerous. The king broke his 
promise, and, taking advantage of a later opportunity, obtained 



304 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the trial and execution of many of the leaders of the rising. 
Several of the great northern nobles, gentry, and abbots, and a 
great number of lesser men, were sent to the block. 

267. Ireland. — The opposition in Ireland to the Reformation 
was even greater than in the north of England, but that country 
was too disunited to resist. Since the conquest under Henry II 
the English kings had used the title " Lord of Ireland," had kept 
a representative at Dublin ruling over the Anglicized district known 
as the " Pale," and had asserted a supremacy over the native chief- 
tains and the nobles of English descent who held estates in the 
more distant parts of the country. But English government in 
Ireland did not mean much until the time of Henry VII. He 
had introduced a stronger government there as he had in Eng- 
land. The most important step in this had been the enactment 
by the Irish parliament, which only included representatives from 
the Pale but bound all Ireland by its acts, of the law known as 
" Poynings's Law." This was adopted in 1494 and provided that in 
future no act should be introduced into the Irish parliament until 
it had first been submitted to and approved by the king and the 
English privy council, a measure which subordinated the Irish 
parliament entirely to England. 

Henry VIII put down a rebellion of a great Anglo-Irish family, 
the Geraldines, and in 1526 sent an able lord deputy, Lord 
Leonard Grey, to Ireland to introduce the new royal supremacy 
in the church and to strengthen the old royal supremacy in the 
state. The Irish monasteries were suppressed and their property 
confiscated, relics and images were destroyed, and adherents of 
the new system placed in the archbishoprics and bishoprics. To 
the great mass of the Irish people these changes were only a part 
of the tyranny of the English government. They not only did not 
sympathize with the Reformation, but they probably did not under- 
stand or think of it at all. No alteration had taken place in their 
opinions or practices, except such as had been forced upon them 
by their conquerors. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 305 

A few years afterwards Henry took the new title of " King of 
Ireland," and by that title he was acknowledged in a parliament 
which met in 1541, and which included for the first time in Irish 
history the native chiefs from beyond the Pale. 

268. Stages of the Reformation. — Three steps in the Refor- 
mation had by this time been taken in England. The bishops had 
been humbled before the king, the church of England was sepa- 
rated from Rome, and the monasteries had been destroyed. But 
it was no part of the wish or intention of Henry and his principal 
advisers that changes should go farther. The English Reforma- 
tion as a whole may be said to consist of six principal changes : 
(1) the subordination of church to state, (2) the separation from 
the papacy, (3) the abolition of monasteries, (4) the common use 
of the Bible and of church services in English, (5) the simplifi- 
cation of ceremonies, and (6) a change in long-accepted doctrines. 
Only the first three or at most four of these were in accordance 
with the desires of Henry VIII. He wished that the changes 
should stop with the ecclesiastical independence of England, his 
own control of the English church, the destruction of the monas- 
teries, and perhaps the translation of the Bible and some parts of 
the prayer book into English. 

To make plain the fact that the doctrinal beliefs of the church 
of England were to be the same as they had always been, various 
proclamations were issued from time to time to declare and explain 
these beliefs. The most decisive of these was the " Act of the 
Six Articles," approved by parliament and issued in 1539, in which 
the principal doctrines of the old church were reannounced, and 
death declared the penalty for disbelief in them. Thus far was 
the Reformation to go and no farther. 

Yet change was in the air. New religious teachings were being 
brought into England from Germany and other continental coun- 
tries. The " new learning " had set men to thinking, to criti- 
cising, and to planning for improvement. The king himself and 
many of the clergy were more or less under the influence of the 



306 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

spirit of the times, which called for more reasonable grounds for 
beliefs than the mere fact that they had always been held. 

It was not probable, therefore, that religious faith would remain 
as it had been, now that the English church was no longer bound 
to retain uniformity with the rest of the Christian church. During 
the middle ages the church of England had been bound to the 
general system of European church belief, organization, and prac- 
tice. Now by the breach with the papacy it had been freed from 
Roman Catholic traditions, and become subject to all the winds 
and tides of the thought of the time. 

269. Growth of Protestant Belief. — Acts of parliament and 
proclamations of the king were therefore not sufficient to put a 
stop to changes in belief that were taking place quite apart from 
the intentions or desires of the government. More and more men 
were coming to hold religious views very different from those taught 
by the old church or by the Six Articles. The Protestant teach- 
ings of Luther, Zwingli, and other reformers in Germany were gain- 
ing acceptation in England. Many men were thinking religious 
problems out for themselves and were coming to conclusions far 
different from the beliefs authorized by law. 

At the very time that parliament and the king were passing 
laws to preserve England in the old faith, various young scholars 
at the universities, tradesmen in London and other cities, obscure 
priests, and others, mostly of the middle or lower classes, were 
adopting a very different faith. Some of these went abroad, had 
tracts and religious books which taught Protestant views printed 
at Antwerp and elsewhere, brought them back to London, and 
distributed them through the country. One of the most influen- 
tial of these Protestants was Tyndale, a scholar successively at the 
two English universities, next a preacher in London, and then a 
student in Wittenberg under Luther. There he translated the New 
Testament into English, added to it much of his own explanation 
of its meaning, and had it printed and conveyed in as large num- 
bers as possible^into England. Even among the king's advisers and 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 307 

the higher clergy many were influenced by the new teachings and 
the new direction of thought. Cromwell, Archbishop Cranmer, 
and Bishop Latimer were conspicuous representatives of this class 
of men who were subjecting old doctrines and old customs to new 
criticism, and were coming to feel the desirability of further changes. 

During the latter part of the reign of Henry VIII, therefore, 
men were divided in religious matters into three classes. There 
were in the first place the vast number who disapproved of all 
the recent religious changes ; secondly, there were those who 
approved of the changes which had been made but did not wish 
them carried farther ; thirdly, there were the reformers who would 
gladly have carried the Reformation to greater lengths, but were 
prevented from doing so by the policy of the king and the influ- 
ence of those who were opposed to further changes. 

270. The Scriptures in English The only advances which 

were made during the last eight years of Henry's reign were in 
the fourth of the points just enumerated, — the greater use of 
the common language of the people in the church services. In 
1526 Tyndale's translation of the New Testament had been 
secretly imported. It was disapproved and condemned by the 
church authorities, partly because of expressions used in the trans- 
lation and of Protestant explanations given in footnotes and intro- 
duction, and partly because of the old objection to the common 
people reading the Bible without explanation. A few years later, 
however, in 1537, when a translation of the whole Bible, based 
partly on one made by Coverdale, partly upon Tyndale's, was 
brought into England, its use was encouraged by Cromwell, and 
the king ordered that a copy should be placed in every parish 
church, to be read by the people. A year afterwards all prohi- 
bition against the people reading it in their own houses was taken 
away, and in 1539 a new translation known as the " Great Bible " 
was authorized and issued by the government. 

Much the same change was in progress in the forms of private 
and public prayer. The " primer " or collection of private prayers 



308 A SHORT" HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

had been long used in English, but a new and authorized form was 
now issued. All parts of the Scriptures which were read in the 
church services were put into English, and in 1544 Cranmej com- 
posed a new litany l to be said in the language of the people. 

But no changes of doctrine were allowed. In the eyes of the 
king, of his most influential advisers, and of the majority of the 
higher clergy, the new beliefs coming to be so largely held were 
still heresy. Those who believed in them were from time to time 
brought to trial, and several were burned at the stake. Many 
more were imprisoned, frightened into denying their beliefs, or 
forced to go into exile in foreign countries. 

271. The King's Marriages. — Henry's private life, if a king 
can be said to have a private life, was not happy. While the eccle- 
siastical changes which have been described were in progress he 
had carried out the personal objects which had led him into con- 
flict with the old church. When the delay of the pope to grant 
the divorce had gone on for five years, and parliament was about 
to pass the Statute of Appeals, Henry took things into his own 
hands, married Anne Boleyn, and referred the question of the 
legality of his previous marriage to a church court made up of 
English clergymen. This court, presided over by the new arch- 
bishop, Cranmer, decided that the king had never been legally 
married to Catherine, and that his recent marriage to Anne was 
therefore legal. The pope thereupon gave his decision to the 
contrary ; but according to the Statute of Appeals this decision 
had no force in England. Henry and Anne had one daughter, 
the future Queen Elizabeth, but they were not happy together. 
Henry came to believe her guilty of a base crime, and for this she 
was in 1535 divorced, tried, convicted, and beheaded. Ten days 
after the execution of Anne, Henry married a lady named Jane 
Seymour, who later bore a son who became Edward VI. She 
died within a year of her marriage. Henry was afterwards three 

1 The litany was a series of responsive prayers to be recited in the reli- 
gious processions of priest and people. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 309 

times married, two of these wives successively being divorced. 1 
Cromwell, who had been principal minister for ten years after 
the fall of Wolsey, gradually lost the king's confidence. In 1540 
the many enemies whom he had made in carrying out the king's 
despotic policy brought about his downfall by carrying through 
parliament a bill of attainder against him. 

272. Close of the Reign. — Henry's health was bad during his 
later life, and he became so stout that he could hardly ride or 
even walk. He became steadily more tyrannical. The funda- 
mental selfishness of his character, increased by bodily discomfort, 
personal unhappiness, and the sense of failure in many of his 
schemes, made him an irritable, harsh, and capricious ruler through- 
out all these later years, though his mental vigor never left him. 
In the course of his reign he had brought about or approved the 
execution of two of his most devoted ministers, More and Crom- 
well, and the disgrace and unhappiness of a third, Wolsey. Besides 
his disavowal of Catherine, he had caused the execution of two 
wives, of many of the highest nobility, some of them blood rela- 
tives, of a score of churchmen of high dignity, and of a large 
number of lesser men. It is true that these men and women had 
been declared guilty of rebellion, treason, or other serious offenses. 
But many of the laws under which they suffered were newly made 
for Henry's benefit, and he was responsible for their harsh admin- 
istration. Notwithstanding his early popularity, his great abilities, 
his leadership in the Reformation, his preservation of national 
peace and order, and his long, masterful reign, there was a general 
sigh of relief when in 1547 his death occurred. 

273. The Succession to the Crown. — There had been so much 
confusion about the legitimacy of Henry's children, and uncertainty 

1 Henry's fourth wife was Anne of Cleves, daughter of one of the 
Protestant princes of the continent. She was divorced from Henry by 
mutual agreement. His fifth wife was Catherine Howard, who was guilty 
of misconduct, divorced, and beheaded. His sixth wife was Catherine Parr 
who outlived him. 



310 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

as to their right to the inheritance, that parliament had passed a 
special act giving him the right to provide in his will for the suc- 
cession to the crown. In accordance with this act of parliament 
he left instructions that his son Edward should succeed him and 
pass the crown down to his children, if he should have any. If 
he had none, it was to go to his elder sister Mary and to her 
children. If she also should die without children, it should go to 
Elizabeth. As a matter of fact, each of Henry's children reigned 
in succession and all died without heirs. 

274. The Protectorate. — The young king Edward VI was a 
boy of ten, and provision had therefore been made in his father's 
will for the government to be carried on by a council in his name. 
This plan, however, was immediately changed and the powers of 
government given to the king's uncle, the duke of Somerset, with 
the title "Protector." From 1547 to 1549 the government was 
practically in his hands, and for the remaining three years of the 
king's life, in the hands of a successor in a similar position, the 
duke of Northumberland. The king never came to rule at all, 
though he was very precocious, and in the last two years of his life, 
when he was fourteen and fifteen, he took a great interest in affairs 
of government and discussed matters of state with his council. 

275. The Advance of Protestantism. — The most serious ob- 
stacle in the way of the continuance of the Reformation was 
removed by Henry's death. Somerset was one of those who had 
favored further changes, and he now threw himself into the work 
of carrying them out. Some of the bishops who opposed his plans 
were removed, and advanced reformers were put in their places. 
The fourth step of the Reformation before described was now car- 
ried to completion. A prayer book entirely in English was pre- 
pared by Archbishop Cranmer and others of the clergy, approved 
by parliament in 1549, and ordered to be used in all the churches. 
It was reissued in a modified form two years afterward and has 
ever since been used, with but few further changes, in the church 
of England and in the Protestant Episcopal church in America. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 311 

Other changes in the forms of worship and in religious customs 
were introduced rapidly. Partly by voluntary action of various 
congregations and parish authorities, partly by authoritative com- 
mands issued by Somerset, what has been described above as the 
fifth step of the Reformation was now taken. Crucifixes and 
the images of saints were generally removed from their niches in 
the churches, melted down when they were of metal, burned 
* when they were of wood, and broken when they were of stone. 
The stained-glass windows on which were pictured the figures of 
Christ, the apostles, and the saints were destroyed. The emblem- 
atic religious pictures on the walls of the churches were plastered 
or whitewashed over. The use of holy water was given up. Clergy- 
men abandoned the use of colored robes at the services and fre- 
quently even of the white gown. Fasting was generally dispensed 
with, clergymen were allowed to marry, penance was no longer 
imposed, and pilgrimages were prohibited. 

276. The Completion of the Reformation. — The Reformation 
passed rapidly on to its last stage, alteration of certain religious 
beliefs. Doctrine had been slowly modified during the last few 
years as practice was changed. In 1548 the Act of the Six Articles 
was repealed, and in the second prayer book many points of doc- 
trine were put in a strongly Protestant form. In 1553 all these 
theological matters were drawn up in forty-two articles, which 
were adopted by Parliament and declared to be the religious 
beliefs of the English church. Later these, in the form of the 
" Thirty-nine Articles," became, like the prayer book, a perma- 
nent part of the English church system. 

The changes of this period of the Reformation, like the earlier 
steps, were carried through largely by the government. Many 
of the people welcomed them heartily and approved of all that 
was done. Many others disapproved of them entirely and would 
gladly have returned to the old ways. The great proportion of the 
people, however, either from indifference or because they held 
more moderate opinions, felt themselves to be somewhere between 



312 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

these two extremes. Nevertheless the government insisted that 
all the people should conform to the law in religious matters just 
the same as in all others. In 1552 an Act of Uniformity was 
passed ordering that the official prayer book should be used in 
all churches. No clergyman was allowed to use the Latin mass or 
any other form of worship than that established by law ; and all 
persons were required on Sundays and holy days to attend their par- 
ish churches where this sendee was used. Homilies or approved 
sermons explaining the doctrines and moral teachings of the church 
were also prepared and ordered to be read by ministers in the 
churches. 

Thus the church of England had been transformed from its 
mediaeval character as a branch of the Roman Catholic church 
to a form very similar to that of other Protestant churches. 

277. Dissolution of the Chantries. — Another break with the 
past was made in the time of Edward VI by the abolition of all 
chantries and their services. Men had from time to time during 
several centuries bequeathed to trustees certain property, the 
income from which was to be used to support a priest to say 
daily and anniversary masses, to keep a candle burning before the 
shrine of some saint, to give alms to poor people, to support a 
schoolmaster, or to fulfill other pious requirements. Such a 
bequest was called a chantry. In some towns there w T ere whole 
rows of houses held by the town authorities, by chaplains, or other 
trustees, who rented them out and used the income thus obtained 
for the purposes required in the wills of the founders. Many of 
the old craft gilds also possessed property with which they kept up 
chantries, and in other cases religious gilds were specially formed 
by poor persons who each contributed a small sum for the pur- 
pose of supporting a priest who should say commemorative masses 
for the souls of the contributors. 

In the later years of Henry VIII, property which had been left 
by will for religious purposes was coming to be locked upon as 
fair game by the government and by influential courtiers. Many 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



313 



of the trustees of such funds were showing the same disregard for 
the wishes of the founders by betraying their trusts and either 
using the income from the property in their hands for their own 
purposes or diverting it to different uses from those for which it 
was intended. Just before Henry's death, therefore, a law was 
passed authorizing him to take possession of these endowments, 
just as had been done in the case of the monasteries, and to use 
their income for educational and other purposes. 

Henry's death prevented any action being taken under this law, 
but in the first year of the reign of Edward VI the same act was 
renewed. It was declared that the offering up of prayers for the 
souls of the dead, the burning of candles before the shrines of 
saints, and the hallowing of private chapels were superstitious 
and unchristian practices, and that the property possessed by 
chantries and devoted to these uses should be confiscated to the 
government. Immediate steps were taken to carry this out. 
The old memorial services and celebrations came to an end as 
completely as had the monasteries, and some two thousand chantry 
priests ceased to perform 
their old duties but re- 
ceived small pensions 
from the government to 
recompense them for the 
salaries of which they 
had been deprived. 

278. Schools. — The 
chantries had performed 
other duties along with 
their religious services. 
Some had distributed 

alms to a certain number of poor persons. Some had provided for 
the support of one or more schoolmasters to give free instruction. 
These duties the government now undertook to perform or to pro- 
vide for by the return of a proportionate part of the endowments 










A Fifteenth-Century Grammar School 
at Taunton 



314 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

which had been confiscated. A promise was also given to 
devote a portion of the money before used for the support of 
priests to the support of schools. This duty was only partially 
carried out. Many, it is true, of the schools formerly kept up by 
the chantries were reestablished by the government and their old 
endowments returned to them ; but the confusion of the times 
and the difficulties of the government prevented any proper 
attention to the support and encouragement of the reorganized 
schools, and much of the funds secured from the chantries was 
wasted or used for very different purposes. At about the same 
time, however, several new schools were established and endowed 
by private persons, and the reign of Edward VI has usually 
been looked back to as a time of the founding or refounding 
of schools. 

279. Inclosures. — The period of the early Tudors was one in 
which many other fundamental changes besides the Reformation 
were in progress. The country districts underwent a complete 
transformation. During the middle ages England had been in 
the main a country of small peasant farmers, each raising enough 
grain, farm animals, and other products to feed and clothe his 
family, and perhaps a little more to sell. Whether he was a 
villein or a freeholder his acres were few, scattered around in the 
open fields of the village, and devoted to the usual round of 
crops. At the other extreme in size were the great farms of the 
lords of manors, differing but little in the distribution of the acre 
strips of which they were composed, the crops raised upon them, 
and their methods of agriculture from the small farms, but much 
larger and carried on by stewards with the forced or hired labor 
of the peasantry, or by tenants who had taken the demesne on 
lease from the lord of the manor. 1 

Another class of farmers, however, was now coming into exist- 
ence. They were those who rented considerable amounts of 
land from the lords of the manors and introduced new methods 
1 See pp. 200-203 and p. 245. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 315 

of farming upon them. The principal use to which these larger 
farms were put was the raising of sheep in large numbers for 
their wool. In order to raise sheep to advantage the farmers 
needed a large tract of land in one stretch. This was impossible 
so long as the land lay in the old scattered strips, so they induced 
the landlords to evict large numbers of small farmers and rent the 
land to them for their sheep farms. The sheep farmers inclosed 
with hedges the large fields thus obtained, instead of allowing 
them to lie open and unfenced as had before been customary. 
They also inclosed large parts of the open commons, which had 
before been used by the small farmers and country laborers for 
pasturing their animals. 

280. Evil Results of the Inclosures. — As a result of these 
inclosures and of the evictions great numbers of small farmers 
found themselves without occupation. Farm laborers also lost 
their employment; since sheep raising requires very few hands. 
The small farmers found no other land and the laborers found 
no demand for their services in other places, since the same thing 
was going on throughout much of England. Men who had been 
thrifty small farmers were often driven with their families to become 
paupers and vagabonds. All the inhabitants of a country village 
were sometimes forced to give up the homes that they and their 
forefathers had occupied ; the houses soon disappeared ; the 
church became a ruin ; and there was nothing left but a sheep- 
cot and a few herdsmen's hovels. The new farmers were of 
course growing wealthy from the greater profits of sheep farming, 
and the landowners from the higher rents that were being paid ; 
there was also abundance of wool produced for use in weaving and 
for export. But these gains were made at the cost of much loss 
and suffering to the small farmers or yeomen. 

Inclosures had been in progress since the middle of the fifteenth 
century and went on more and more rapidly through the early 
part of the sixteenth. The lands which were confiscated from the 
monasteries and sold or given to the courtiers of Henry VIII were 



316 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

very generally inclosed in this way for sheep farming by their 
owners or by those to whom they were rented, and the old tenants 
upon them had, as in other cases, to be turned out. The general 
cry of misery, the fear of a decrease in the population, and the 
dislike of changes early attracted the attention of the govern- 
ment to inclosures, and successive laws intended to prevent them 
were passed by parliament. The laws, however, proved ineffective. 
Other voices were also raised against the inclosures. Writers and 
preachers charged the landlords, large farmers, and capitalists 
with harsh, unjust, and unchristian dealing, and appealed to them 
to consider the sufferings of the poor. But the inclosures still 
went on, with all the advantages which they brought to the class 
of landowners and large farmers, and all their evils to the small 
"(farmers and laborersj 

281. The Protector's Favor to the Poor. — These conditions 
were at their height in the reign of Edward VI. The Protector, 
Somerset, along with a group of reformers, now determined to 
put a stop to inclosures by enforcing the laws which had already 
been passed or by securing the passage of still stronger laws. A 
commission was therefore appointed to go from county to county 
to inquire into the matter and to prosecute those who had violated 
the laws against inclosures. The commissioners found their task 
a hard one. They were met with every kind of opposition. Juries 
were afraid to convict wealthy landlords or influential large farmers, 
witnesses were threatened or attacked, and the laws were evaded 
in numberless ways. Even members of parliament, judges, and 
members of the privy council resisted the enforcement of the laws 
N and opposed the designs of the Protector. 

In 1549 the peasantry, already excited and displeased by the 
sudden changes of the Reformation, resentful at the evictions and 
loss of occupation, stirred with the prospect of reforms and yet 
made desperate by the opposition to them, rose in revolt almost 
simultaneously in several parts of England. The Protector, 
although he sympathized with their grievances and at first treated 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 317 

them leniently, had at last to use military force. There was a 
bitter struggle in which several thousand men were killed, and 
the rebels were only put down with great difficulty. 

282. Fall of Somerset. — Those who were opposed to Somerset's 
policy of favor to the common people, those who felt that he had 
failed in his larger plans, and some members of the council who 
were jealous of his power, took advantage of this opportunity to 
organize an opposition party and call for his resignation of the 
office of Protector. This he gave when he found that he had no 
sufficient party of supporters. The most influential position in 
the council which governed in the name of the young king was 
now taken by the duke of Northumberland, who did not, however, 
take the title of Protector. Somerset was imprisoned in the Tower 
of London, then released for a while, but afterwards tried for 
conspiracy against his successor and executed on the charge of 
treason. 

The effort to enforce the laws against inclosures fell with Som- 
erset, at least for the time. The great difficulty was that exactly 
the class which was most influential in government and social life at 
this time — the country gentry and the wealthy merchants of the 
towns — was the class which was most interested in seeing the 
changes in the use of the land carried on, because it increased 
their rents and their profits. Most of the laws of this period were 
in favor of this class, and those which were opposed to their inter- 
ests, like those directed against inclosures, could not be enforced. 

The movement, therefore, still went on, though it gradually came 
to cause less distress. More of the inclosing came to be for 
improved grain farming rather than for sheep raising ; the increase 
of manufacturing came to require more laborers ; and the small 
farmers and country workmen gradually adapted themselves to the 
new conditions. Inclosures went somewhat out of fashion among 
the farmers themselves, and by the close of the sixteenth century 
little more is heard of this particular kind of trouble, though there 
were some later revivals of it. 



318 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

283. The Debasement of the Coinage. — There were troubles 
enough, however, of other kinds. One was the great rise of prices, 
or rather their irregularity. One cause of this was the change 
going on in farming and other forms of industry. Another was 
the change taking place in the purity of the money of the country* 
All through the middle ages there had been about the same 
amount of alloy mixed with the pure silver or gold when they 
were coined, and the coins remained of nearly the same weight. 
In the reign of Henry VIII, however, the king decided to coin a 
pound of silver into forty shillings instead of thirty-seven and a 
half, as before. Somewhat later he had a pound coined into forty- 
five shillings, and later still into forty-eight. The new shillings 
were therefore only about three fourths as large as the old. At the 
same time he began putting more and more alloy in with the pure 
silver till the coined metal was only half silver. Under Edward VI 
the coin was made still worse, only one quarter of the metal being 
silver and the remaining three quarters alloy. Thus the coins were 
not only smaller but of very much poorer metal than of old. The 
same was done with the gold coins. People, however, recognized 
the new and poorer money and charged different prices for their 
goods according to the kind of coins that were offered them. 
This interfered with trade and was particularly hard on the poorer 
classes, who could not insist on receiving good money rather than 
bad. Finally so much of the money in circulation was bad that 
a proclamation was issued declaring that shillings should in the 
future be considered as worth only sixpence, but debased money 
continued to be coined for some years. 

284. Close of the Reign of Edward VI. — As time passed on it 
became certain that the young king was destined to an early 
death from consumption. In 1553, when he was sixteen years 
old, he was so ill that it was evident his death might occur at any 
time. According to the will of Henry VIII, Edward's successor, 
since he had no children, would be his elder sister Mary. Mary 
had lived much in retirement, but so far as she was known she 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 319 

was popular; and notwithstanding the fact that England had 
never been ruled by a woman, and that Mary was known to be a 
Roman Catholic, people believed that there would be peace and 
good order in the country under her rule. Under the government 
of Edward's council Protestantism had been forced upon the 
majority of the people in such an extreme form and by such 
tyrannical measures that to many it had become more distasteful 
than the mediaeval faith. It was a sad time. There was uni- 
versal suffering among the poor, disturbance of trade, dislike and 
distrust of the king's guardians, and the great body of the people 
looked forward with hope and satisfaction to the reign of Mary. 

285. The Plot for the Succession of Lady Jane Grey. — The 
duke of Northumberland, however, knew that his power and per- 
haps his life would be lost the moment Mary came to the throne, 
and he was ready to adopt desperate measures to prevent it. So 
long as Edward lived the duke had control over all the troops, 
forts, navy, treasury, and the government officials. He had also 
obtained unbounded influence over the young king. Strengthened 
by these opportunities he planned a bold stroke for a continuance 
of his power. 

The young king had a cousin, a girl of about his own age, Lady 
Jane Grey. .She was the granddaughter of Mary, the younger 
sister of Henry VIII. She had been brought up in retirement 
under the care of her mother and private tutors. She had the 
precocity of intellectual development and the thoroughness of 
education which were common then among women of the higher 
classes. She was besides a sweet, attractive girl, affectionate to 
her relatives and friends, but with no interest in or knowledge 
of the politics of the time. It was she whom Northumberland 
had chosen as a rival of Mary. He arranged a marriage between 
Jane and his son, and then induced Edward to draw up a paper 
setting aside his father's will and appointing Lady Jane to the 
throne. Edward had no constitutional right to make this arrange- 
ment, as his father had been especially authorized by parliament 



320 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

to arrange the succession, and had only exercised the power by 
this authority. Nevertheless the king, by appealing to the feelings 
and self-interest of the Protestant nobles and the bishops, by com- 
manding the judges on the ground of their duty to him, and finally 
by begging with tears' in his eyes those who still refused, induced 
a large number of those who were in positions of authority to sign 
their names to this document and to pledge themselves to support 
the accession of Jane rather than of Mary. 

The wan face of the 'dying king might secure a promise from 
those who surrounded his deathbed, but it could not overcome the 
difficulties in the way of the succession after his death. The lords 
of the council hailed Lady Jane as queen, and even her father- 
in-law, the great duke, knelt before her. She was proclaimed 
queen in London, taken to the Tower, and treated with royal 
honors for a few days, while Northumberland carried on the gov- 
ernment in her name. 

But Mary was not a woman to yield without a struggle. She 
declared herself to be the rightful queen as soon as the news of 
her brother's death reached her. The nobles gathered around 
her, the troops that were sent by the duke to capture her refused 
obedience to his orders, and within a few days Northumberland 
was arrested and imprisoned, and Jane remained in the Tower a 
prisoner instead of a queen. 

286. Queen Mary. — Mary was received with universal rejoi- 
cings and seemed inclined to let bygones be bygones, to be merci- 
ful to her late opponents, and to rule with the advice of the more 
moderate nobles. The duke of Northumberland was executed, 
but the other leaders of the plot were left in prison unharmed for 
the time, and many of the members of the late king's council still 
remained in office. Nevertheless, when some of Mary's actions 
and plans proved to be unpopular, another plot was formed among 
a number of the nobles and gentry, and a fierce revolt broke out 
under the leadership of Sir Thomas Wyatt, a Kentish gentle- 
man. It gained its principal strength among the people of that 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 321 

turbulent county, which had been the birthplace of so many earlier 
rebellions. The plan of the conspirators was to depose Mary and 
to put her younger sister Elizabeth on the throne. This revolt, 
however, was put down after some fighting in and around London, 
where for a moment it had seemed on the point of success. 

The queen was now angry and bitter. She wished all who had 
taken part in either of the efforts to exclude her from the throne 
to be put to death. More than a hundred were tried and exe- 
cuted for complicity in the last rising. Even Lady Jane Grey, 
who had known nothing about this rebellion and who would not 
have profited by its success, was in- 
formed that she with her husband 
must die for her treason in occupying 
for a few days an undesired throne. 
Only seventeen years of age, alone, 
inexperienced, and innocent, Lady 
Jane Grey went to the scaffold with 
a quiet courage and dignity and a 

serene persistence in her Protestant 

£ 'ax. a t_ a. 1 j 11 1 Medal with Portrait of Queen 

faith that shamed many an older and R „ ,, ., f . ,. 

3 Mary (by the Italian en- 

guiltier sufferer, so that her character graver Primavera) 
stands out as an oasis of purity and 

pathos in the desert of violence, betrayal, and hardness of that time. 
287. The Roman Catholic Reaction. — The causes which had 
led to Wyatt's rebellion were principally two, — Mary's plan to 
reintroduce religion in its mediaeval form by making England 
again subject to the pope in church affairs, and her announced 
choice of her cousin Philip, the son of the king of Spain, for a 
husband. Immediately on her accession some of the recently in- 
troduced Protestant practices were given up and Roman Catholic 
ceremonies took their place. The most extreme and active of the 
Protestant reformers either went voluntarily into exile or were 
shut up in prison on various charges. The old Catholic service 
in Latin was reintroduced here and there with little opposition, 




322 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and soon became almost universal. The Roman Catholics in each 
parish, or at least those who preferred old rather than new ways, 
set up again the crucifixes and resumed the old familiar religious 
customs. The queen and her advisers took even more decisive 
action in the- same direction. She released immediately from their 
confinement the bishops who had opposed the Protestant changes 
of the last reign, and restored them to their honors and duties, 
expelling those who had been put in their sees. Then she required 
all the clergy who had married either to put away their wives or to 
give up their offices in the church. When parliament met, a gen- 
eral repeal act was passed by which the laws on religion passed in 
the reign of Edward were abrogated, and matters restored to much 
the position in which they had been at the death of Henry VIII. 

288. The Spanish Marriage. — But Queen Mary was not satis- 
fied with this. She wished to have the connection with the papacy 
restored as it had been before any of the events of the Reforma- 
tion had taken place. Besides this she had made up her mind, 
at the suggestion of the Spanish ambassador, who was her most 
trusted adviser, to marry Philip. Both of these plans were unpop- 
ular in England, but little could be done in opposition to the 
will of the queen. Men and parties were in mutual antagonism, 
the authority of the sovereign was still as great as it had been 
in the time of Henry VIII, and Mary's inclinations were drawing 
her nearer and nearer to both the marriage with Philip and the 
restoration of the papal power. Then came the rising of Wyatt 
and his friends, and when it was put down not only was Mary 
more determined than ever, but resistance by the people was now 
hopeless. She at last had her way. Philip came to England, the 
marriage took place, and for a few weeks or months Mary fancied 
herself happy. But Philip had no love for his bride, in fact actu- 
ally disliked her. He avoided her as much as he could and in 
about a year left England. 

289. Loss of Calais. — The principal object for which Philip 
had sought the marriage with Mary was to draw England into the 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 323 

war which had been in progress for some time between Spain and 
France. After long hesitation English troops were at last sent to 
the continent to fight on the Spanish side. They won little 
honor, and soon afterwards England, as a result of being at war 
with France, suffered what was then felt as a great disaster. In 
1558 Calais was suddenly besieged by a large French army and 
fleet. It was poorly provided with men and supplies and the 
home government was too slow in sending reinforcements. As a 
result it was taken by storm, notwithstanding a gallant defense. 
All the English inhabitants were driven out, leaving their property 
behind them, and returned to England with nothing but their 
clothes. Calais became again a French city. The sorrow, anger, 
and humiliation of the queen and of the whole people of England 
were extreme. For more than two hundred years the English 
flag had floated over Calais and English merchants and citizens 
had occupied it. It was an outpost of English defense, the proof 
of England's military power, the badge of her control of the 
Channel, the center of her trade with the continent, the gate of 
entrance through which her warlike expeditions entered France. 
Its loss seemed to set the stamp of humiliation upon England and 
to deprive her of much of her old glory. 

From a practical point of view the loss of Calais was probably a 
real gain for England. Its garrison had long been a great and 
unremunerative expense, trade had changed so much that Calais 
was not needed to obtain an entrance to the continent, and it was 
just as well that England should not be tempted to send military 
expeditions into France. Nevertheless it was a great blow to the 
nation's pride and a bitter disappointment to the queen. (( An old 
story says that on her deathbed she declared that if her body were 
opened two names would be found written on her heart ; one would/ 
be " Philip," the other " Calais." 

290. The Restoration of Papal Control In her resolution to 

restore the old church in England, Mary was as successful as in the 
Spanish marriage. A number of influential churchmen had never 



324 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

agreed to any part of the Reformation, many persons were dis- 
gusted by the unworthy actions of some of the extreme reformers, 
and the great body of the nation was either tired of such sudden 
changes, or entirely indifferent to the whole matter. Thus the 
queen and a few bold Roman Catholic leaders were able to induce 
parliament to agree to restore the old powers of the Roman 
church in England. They found it necessary first, however, to 
promise that there should be no effort made to get back the mon- 
astery and chantry lands from* their present owners. All those 
who had obtained lands formerly devoted to religious purposes 
were confirmed in them by the queen's promise, by a special dis- 
pensation of the pope, and later by act of parliament. Then 
Cardinal Pole, an Englishman who had been exiled on account of 
his opposition to the policy of Henry VIII, was sent as special 
ambassador from the pope. The two houses of parliament, for 
themselves and in the name of the whole people, asked to be 
forgiven for their disobedience and rebellion against the pope and 
promised to repeal all the acts which they had passed against the 
papal authority. Then the king, queen, lords, and commons bent 
on their knees and received forgiveness and absolution from the 
legate in the name of the pope. Parliament after this passed a 
great act repealing some sixteen acts of former parliaments, being 
all the laws antagonistic to the church passed since 1529, and 
restoring the ecclesiastical system almost to its old form. 

291. The Religious Persecution. — It was one thing to declare 
that all should be as it had been of old, it was quite another to 
induce every one to believe as had been believed in former times. 
However anxious to return to Roman Catholicism, or however 
indifferent to religion the great majority of the nation might be, 
there were many individuals in all classes of society who had 
become convinced and earnest Protestants. For some time there 
was little interference with these, though Archbishop Cranmer, 
Bishops Latimer, Ridley, and Hooper, and other prominent religious 
leaders who did not voluntarily go into exile remained in prison. 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 325 

As time went on, however, and the Roman Catholic reaction 
became stronger, Mary first allowed and then encouraged the 
effort to force everybody to accept the old faith in all its strict- 
ness or else be punished for heresy. 

Parliament reenacted the old laws for the burning of heretics 
under which the Lollards had suffered and reestablished the church 
courts. Soon the sad work began. Many prominent Protestants 
who had long lain in prison were tried before church officials, and, 
when they refused to give up their opinions, were handed over to 
the sheriffs or town officials to be burned at the stake. There were 
very few cases of recantation. Most of those who were tried per- 
sisted in their beliefs and the law was then carried out. Arch- 
bishop Cranmer, a man of delicate, shrinking physical nature, of 
hesitating and over-cautious habits of mind, broken and wearied 
by long imprisonment, by the knowledge of the suffering of many 
of those who had been burnt, and by the unending strife of opinions 
and apparent conflict of duties, was drawn into one form of recan- 
tation after another, till he had practically denied all his recent 
teachings and approved the whole Roman Catholic system. Never- 
theless, when actually in sight of the stake, he withdrew these 
recantations, declared his faith in Protestant doctrines, and when 
he was burned held his right hand in the flame in order that it 
should be burned first for signing his name to a falsehood. 

The scenes of public execution of heretics by fire became only 
too common. More were put to death in two years than in the 
preceding century and a half during which the heresy laws had 
been in existence. Between two hundred and fifty and three 
hundred altogether were thus martyred, while hundreds more lay 
suffering in the miserable prisons of the time. Most of the per- 
secution was carried on in two or three dioceses whose bishops 
were especially determined or which were particularly under the 
influence of the queen and those of her advisers who favored 
this attempt to force the people into conforming to the official 
doctrines. 



326 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

292. Mary's Declining Health and Happiness. — The queen had 
no child, notwithstanding her passionate eagerness for one, and the 
hope of Philip and of the English people for an heir to the throne. 
She soon recognized the absence of love for her on her husband's 
part, though her own for him seemed to increase rather than dimin- 
ish. It was the same with her popularity. Like her father and her 
brother and sister she was extremely anxious to have the love of 
her people. Yet her somber nature, her policy, and the occur- 
rences of the time rapidly deprived her of the popularity she had 
possessed at her accession to the throne. More than once letters 
and placards were found thrown into her own room telling her 
that she was hated by the people and ridiculing her devotion to 
a husband who despised her. As the queen failed in health, lost 
her spirits, and became more unhappy she turned with still greater 
urgency to the work of rooting out heresy. Partly no doubt she 
felt this to be her religious duty, hoping with superstitious devo- 
tion that a more vigorous fulfillment of it might bring to her that 
favor of heaven of which she seemed so far to have enjoyed so 
little. Partly it was no doubt a relief to her bitter feelings to exer- 
cise severity upon the heretics who, in her opinion and that of all 
the men in whom she confided, were unworthy to live upon the 
earth and were destined to everlasting punishment. 

But the persecution failed of its intended effect. Crowds 
gathered around those who were condemned to die, and, even 
when they did not agree with them or take any interest in their 
beliefs, cheered them in their resolution, pitied their sufferings, 
encouraged them with shouts and prayers, and cried out against 
the clergy and the queen who were responsible for putting them 
to death. 

Thus Mary's reign drew to an end. There were several con- 
spiracies and plots to overthrow the government. All of these 
were discovered in time or else failed at the first attempt. Never- 
theless each bore its fruit of executions and increased the confu- 
sion and dissatisfaction of the time. Mary died in 1558, and all 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 327 

England again looked with hope to the beginning of a new and better 
age under the third child of Henry VIII, Mary's sister Elizabeth. 

293. Summary of the Period 1485-1558. — The greatest char- 
acteristic of this period was the enormous power of the ruler. 
England was practically an absolute monarchy. Although most 
of the actions of the government were carried out through the 
regular procedure of council, courts, parliament, and local officers, 
yet these did not have either the power or the desire to resist the 
will of the king. Although the king had no standing army to 
enforce his wishes, yet the habit of obedience was so great and 
the organization of the government so complete that forcible 
resistance was in no single case successful. 

The greatest result of this despotic position of the king was the 
carrying through of the Reformation as a scheme of royal policy. 
Many of the tendencies of the time favored the Reformation, and 
in some of its phases its form and progress were very different 
from what the king would have wished. Nevertheless in the main 
it followed the personal desires of the king, and England was 
Protestant, Catholic, or merely independent of the pope accord- 
ing as Edward, Mary, or Henry was on the throne. It was only 
later that the Reformation became an affair of the English people, 
independent of their rulers, and never did the established church 
cease to represent the wishes of the crown. 

The end which Henry VII put to the disorders and turmoil 
of the barons, and the heavy hand the kings always kept over break- 
ers of the peace and other ill doers, made this a time of advancing 
wealth and prosperity for the merchant class and for the land- 
holders and large farmers in the country. The inclosures, the 
debasement of the coinage, and the severity of the laws made it 
a hard period for the lower classes, and the unwise policy of the 
government went far to counteract the advantages of peace and 
order. 

This was also the period of the " new learning," which was des- 
tined to lead on to a new literature only a generation later ; and 



328 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

printing, good portraiture, much building, improved schools, more 
widely spread education, and interest in discoveries all indicate 
that it was an active intellectual period. It was an age of much 
breaking with the past, and the times of Queen Elizabeth which 
were to follow were much more like modern times than they were 
like the middle ages. 



General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, iv, sects. 3-6, chap, vi, 
sects. 1 and 2. Gairdner, Henry VII. Busch, England under the Tudors. 
Vol. I has the subtitle King Henry VII. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers. 
Wakeman, History of the Church of England, chaps, xi-xiv. MoBERLY, 
The Early Tudors (Epochs of History). Creighton, Wolsey. Pollard, 
England tinder Protector Somerset. The longest work on this period is 
Froude, History of England, Vols. I- VI. It is a book of much learning, 
sagacity, and charm of style, but it is so prejudiced that it cannot be con- 
sidered a trustworthy account. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English 
Monasteries, corrects Froude on many points. Einstein, The Italian 
Renaissance in England, is a valuable work including much new matter. 
A good short account of the German Reformation, which exercised so 
much influence on that of England, can be found in Robinson, History 
of JVestern Europe, chaps, xxv and xxvi; and another account in Seebohm, 
Era of the Protestant Revolution (Epochs of History). The inclosures are 
quite fully described in Cheyney, Social Changes in England in the Six- 
teenth Century, Part I (Rural Changes), and in Ashley, English Economic 
History, Vol. II, chap. iv. Innes, England under the Tudors, is a good 
book in a single volume covering the period of this chapter and the next. 

Contemporary Sources. — Cavendish, Cardinal Wolsey. Cavendish was 
one of Wolsey's clerks and wrote of what he had himself seen and heard. 
Roper, Sir Thomas More. Roper was More's son-in-law. More, Utopia. 
Translations and Reprints, Vol. I, No. 1, The Early Reformation Period. 
The Reformation statutes are given in Adams and Stephens, Select Docu- 
ments of English Constitutional History, Nos. 150, 153, 159, etc. Many 
other documents concerning the Reformation are in Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 
104-132. Those in Colby, Selections from the Sources, Nos. 50-60, are 
particularly interesting and varied ; and there are several in Kendall, 
Source-Book, Nos. 44-50. Extracts from some of the longer works, as well 
as the principal statutes, are in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 185-212. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Shakespeare, Henry VIII, stands out as the 
best known poetic representation of this period. Tennyson's fine drama, 



THE EARLY TUDOR PERIOD 



329 



Queen Mary, gives a pathetic picture of her character. Miss Yonge, The 
Armourer's Prentices, is a story of the time of Henry VIII, and A 1 NSWORTH, 
The Tower of London, of the time of Queen Mary. Mark Twain, The 
Prince and the Pauper, refers to the period of Edward VI. The battle of 
Flodden of 15 13 has left many poetic memorials, the best of which are 
Scott, Marmion, Aytoun, Edinburgh after Flodden, and Miss Elliott, 
The Flowers of the Forest. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Fall of Wolsey, Cavendish, Life of Wolsey 
(Morley's Universal Library), pp. 137-263; (2) How More came to write 
the Utopia, Utopia, Book I; (3) Inclosures, Cheyney, Social and Indus- 
trial History, pp. 141-147; (4) Changes in the Gilds, ibid., pp. 147-161 ; 
(5) Death of Lady Jane Grey, Frotjde, History of England, Vol. VI, chap. 
xxxi; (6) Trial and Execution of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, ibid., ch?^. 
xxxvi; (7) Latimer's Sermons, English Prose (Camelot series), pp. 10-15; 
(8) The Merchants Adventurers, Lingelbach, The Merchatits Adventurers, 
Translations and Reprints, Second Series, Vol. II, pp. i-xxxix; (9) The 
New Learning in England, Green, Short History of the English People, 
chap, vi, sect, iv ; (10) The Renaissance in Italy, Robinson, History of 
Western Europe, pp. 321-353; (11) Early Voyages of Discovery, Traill, 
Social England, Vol. Ill, pp. 209-228; (12) Ireland in the Early Sixteenth 
Century, ibid., pp. 293-302. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 1558-1603 

294. The New Queen. — There has been no greater period in 
English history than the reign of Elizabeth. To this greatness 
many things contributed, — the vigor of the new nobility, the 
enterprise of the middle classes, the strength of national feeling, 
the activity of mind due to the "new learning" and the Reforma- 
tion, and the character of the queen. When Queen Mary died 
Elizabeth was a young woman of twenty-five, animated, intelligent, 
and vigorous. She had received the solid education then in 
fashion for young women of high birth. She could read, write, 
and speak Latin, French, and Italian, as well as remarkably vig- 
orous English. She had studied some Greek and had much gen- 
eral information. She possessed also a sense of humor and a 
capacity for bluff, good-natured repartee inherited from her father, 
while her prudence of speech and caution of action proclaimed 
her the granddaughter of Henry VII. A girlhood passed during 
the reigns of Edward and Mary, when she was more than once in 
imminent danger of suffering the fate of her cousin, Lady Jane 
Grey, had made her self-reliant and wary. 

Notwithstanding these intellectual gifts Elizabeth was not a 
lovable woman. She was selfish and egotistical. Nor was she 
capable of inspiring any very deep personal respect. She was 
often faithless to her friends and vacillating in her likes and dis- 
likes. Sincerity and a delicate sense of honor were absent from 
her character. But few of the great number of men and women 
who surrounded her through life really loved her, or respected her 
for any of her more personal or womanly qualities. Nevertheless 

33o 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



331 



she was thoroughly English. Her very faults were those of her 
people and her time. Back of her affectation and petty coquetry 
she was large-minded and lofty in spirit. She was willing to allow 
differences of opinion and able to understand the feelings of dif- 
ferent men. Above all, Elizabeth was devoted to England. She 
was determined to rule for the whole English people, not for any 
party at home or in subser- 
vience to any power abroad. 

Elizabeth was proclaimed 
queen in 1558, and chose 
as her secretary of state and 
most trusted adviser Sir Wil- 
liam Cecil, whom she after- 
wards made Lord Burleigh. 
Though she often refused to 
take his advice, and even at 
times sent him into retire- 
ment, Burleigh was always 
restored to influence again 
and remained her principal 
counselor until his death in 
1598. Somewhat later than Cecil, Sir Francis Walsingham came 
into her service and became almost equally influential. Upon her 
accession the queen set herself, with the help of these ministers, 
the task of establishing the new reign on firm foundations. 

295. The Religious Settlement. — The most critical question 
was that of religion. Foreign rulers and their ministers, the 
English bishops and office holders, the Roman Catholics and the 
Protestants, all were in suspense awaiting the action of the queen. 
Her decision was shown at her first parliament, which met two 
months after her accession. 

In 1558 a large proportion of the people were still indifferent 
in religious matters, and the power of the crown was very great. 
It was quite possible, therefore, for the ruler to control the form 




Portrait of Elizabeth 



332 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

which the religious organization of the people should take. Eliza- 
beth chose her own ministers, and with them exerted so much 
influence over parliament that almost any laws which she wanted 
could be carried through. Her birth from a marriage forbidden 
by the pope and her desire for freedom from outside control pre- 
vented her from continuing the Roman Catholic policy of Mary. 
She and her ministers therefore settled upon a middle course, 
going back in all matters of church government to the system 
of Henry VIII, and in matters of doctrine and ceremonial to 
that of the reign of Edward VI. To carry out this arrange- 
ment two important laws, known as the "Act of Supremacy" 
and the "Act of Uniformity," were passed by parliament. By 
these acts all laws against the pope which had been repealed 
in Mary's reign were reenacted, and it was declared that " no 
foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate, spiritual or 
temporal, shall at any time after the last day of this session of 
parliament, use, enjoy or exercise any manner of power, jurisdic- 
tion, superiority, authority, preeminence or privilege, spiritual or 
ecclesiastical, within this realm." Although the old title " Head 
of the Church" was not revived, the regulation of the English 
church in matters of doctrine and good order was put into the 
hands of the queen, and she was authorized to appoint a minister 
or ministers to exercise these powers in her name. The mass 
was abolished and in its place the second book of common prayer, 
which had been issued in the reign of Edward VI, with some slight 
modifications, was reintroduced. The ornaments of the churches 
and the forms and ceremonies used in the church sendees were 
ordered to be the same as in the reign of Edward VI. Notwith- 
standing the protests of the clergy, the law proceeded to declare 
that all clergymen and officers of the crown should take an oath 
of obedience to the law as it now stood before entering upon any 
office. Some time afterwards the doctrines of the church were 
promulgated in the form of the "Thirty-Nine Articles," which 
have since remained the standard of doctrine of the church. 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 333 

296. The Middle Position of the English Church. — Thus the 
church of England was established in a form midway between the 
church of Rome and the Protestant churches on the continent of 
Europe. It was not Roman Catholic, as it had been during the 
middle ages, for it had rejected the headship of the pope and 
had introduced many differences in doctrines and ceremonies. 
On the other hand, it was not Protestant like other reformed 
churches, for it retained the organization under archbishops and 
bishops, it had a prescribed form of worship, the clergymen still 
wore robes at the services ; and in fact the changes from the 
mediaeval customs and beliefs were relatively slight. 1 

From this time onward the organization of the English church 
was strictly national, possessing no connection with any authority 
outside of England and modeling itself on no other church. It 
was designed to include every one in England. The form of 
religious service was established by law, and this service, and this 
alone, was to be used by every clergyman and in every church in 
England. It was to be as binding on the people as on the clergy. 
All persons must attend church every Sunday and holy day, under 
penalty of a fine of a shilling for every absence. To see that the 
ecclesiastical laws were carried out and to enforce the control over 
church matters granted to the sovereign by the Act of Supremacy, 

1 This middle position of the reformed church of England is the cause 
of much difficulty in the common words by which it is described. Those 
who are much attached to the church and its ideals object strongly to 
speaking of it as a Protestant church. They declare that it is historically 
the same church of England coming down from the time of the apostles, 
having simply undergone a process of purification, in the sixteenth century, 
in the form of the Reformation. They object also to the use of the word 
Catholic to describe the Roman Catholic church in this connection, claiming 
that the church of England is also Catholic in the sense of being apart of the 
universal church. The adjective Protestant has, however, been customarily 
applied to the reformed church of England for centuries, as it is used in 
this book. For the sake of greater clearness and stricter accuracy Roman 
Catholic is used in all cases in this work where adherents of the. Roman 
Catholic Church are intended, 



334 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Elizabeth from time to time appointed commissioners who came 
finally to form the permanent Court of High Commission. 

297. The Roman Catholics and the Puritans. — The middle 
position in church matters which Elizabeth and her advisers had 
determined upon, although apparently satisfactory enough to the 
majority of the nation, caused deep dissatisfaction to those who 
were at the two extremes in religious matters. On the one hand, 
earnest Roman Catholics did not approve of the abolition of the 
power of the pope in England, or of the other changes from the 
old ways. They wished the continuance of Mary's settlement of 
the church. They were very numerous among the nobility and 
gentry, especially in the north of England and in the rural dis- 
tricts. Many who at the beginning of the reign held office as 
sheriffs, lord lieutenants, and justices of the peace were firm 
Roman Catholics, opposed to change, and reluctant to take the 
oaths required of them by the new law. 

On the other hand, there were many who were dissatisfied with 
the retention of so much from the mediaeval church and were 
anxious to have the Reformation carried much farther than it had 
been. These became known as " Puritans," since they constantly 
expressed a desire for a " purer " form of worship than that of the 
established church. The Puritans were numerous among the mid- 
dle classes and in the towns. Many of them were clergymen, 
and numbers of these had been in exile during the reign of Mary. 
On the continent they had come under the influence of the 
reformers of Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and France, 
and had learned from them far more radical religious views than 
had ever been held in England. 

The government took its position firmly between these two 
extremes. Several bishops had recently died, but the remaining 
fourteen were summoned before the queen and told that they 
must submit to the requirements of the Act of Supremacy. All 
but one of them declined to take the oath which denied the eccle- 
siastical power of the pope and required submission in religious 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



335 



affairs to the control of the queen and her ministers. They were 
therefore deprived of their offices and new bishops and archbishops 
appointed or elected to their places. The pressure put upon the 
lower clergy to conform to the change was more gradual and 
more successful. Of a total of more than nine thousand parish 
priests and other clergymen, less than two hundred stood out in 
their refusal to take the oaths. 
These were removed from their 
posts. Those who had conformed 
gave up the Latin mass gradu- 
ally, though in many cases reluc- 
tantly, and reestablished the use 
of the reformed English service in 
their churches. The government 
showed considerable leniency in the 
application of the law, especially 
during the early years of Elizabeth's 
reign. So long as men would con- 
form outwardly there was no such 
effort to inquire into private reli- 
gious beliefs or to force people into 
conforming as there had been under Mary. The old heresy laws 
of Lollard times, which had been reenacted under Mary, were now 
repealed again and forever. 

298. The Political Settlement. — When Elizabeth came to the 
throne England was in close alliance with Spain and at war with 
France. Peace was soon made with France. At the same time 
the queen and the ministers made every effort to retain the alliance 
with Spain. It was to the highest interest of England to be on 
good terms with both the great continental powers, as the country 
was not prepared to go to war. Her little navy was in bad 
condition, her troops few and poorly equipped, her fortifications 
out of repair, and her treasury empty. It was desirable, more- 
over, to remain at peace with Spain because Spain governed the 




Lord Burleigh 



336 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Netherlands, whither England sent most of the manufactured 
goods which she exported. It was desirable also to avoid war 
with France, because France and Scotland were allies, and a war 
across the Channel was almost sure to mean an invasion of England 
from the Scottish border. 

Yet this policy of peace and neutrality was a difficult one. 
France and Spain were almost continually at war, and England 
was in constant danger of being drawn into the contest. If she 
failed to strengthen herself by a warlike alliance with one of them 
she was apt to be attacked by the other. Each of them had rea- 
sons for interfering in English affairs. The Spanish government was 
dissatisfied with the loss of the influence which it had enjoyed 
during Mary's reign and was displeased with the religious settle- 
ment. Spain looked upon herself as the special champion of the 
English Roman Catholics. France was guardian of the claim 
to the English throne of a rival of Elizabeth and might readily 
plan an invasion for the dethronement of the queen. 

Yet Elizabeth and her ministers felt that the advantages of peace 
to the country were so great that war must be avoided by every 
possible effort. In this, by difficult and tortuous means, they 
were successful. In the political as in the religious settlement 
the government pursued its policy of national independence and 
isolation. English interests were looked after at home and abroad 
without making any sacrifice for the sake of other nations, and 
without hesitating at the adoption of unscrupulous means. Above 
all it was the policy of Elizabeth to avoid being drawn into foreign 
war and to preserve her own shores free from invasion. 

299. The Social Settlement. — The changes, rebellions, and 
disorders of the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary had 
left a legacy of much distress and confusion among the people. 
Inclosures of common land and open fields, and evictions of yeo- 
men from their little farms, were still going on ; many men were 
out of work ; prices were high and wages were low. The currency 
of the country was debased, trade was irregular, and there were 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 337 

great numbers of paupers unable to support themselves. These 
matters needed settlement as much as religion and politics. Some 
of them proved to be incurable except by the slow process of time. 
The laws against inclosures, for instance, were re'enacted, but had 
no more success than before. Pauperism, as will be shown, 
remained a problem but partially solved. 

300. Restoration of the Coinage. — In one field, however, there 
was greater success. The government set itself vigorously to 
the improvement of the condition of the money, the debasement 
of which under Henry VIII and Edward VI has already been 
described. 1 After careful preparation a proclamation was issued by 
the government, in 1560, stating that collectors had been appointed 
in each market town who would give money of standard fineness 2 
in exchange for current coins. Every one who brought his money 
to this officer would receive the value of the pure silver or gold in 
the coins he had brought. He would therefore receive a smaller 
number of pieces but they would be of standard silver. To induce 
people to bring their money a small bounty was promised, and it 
was ordered also that after a certain time the old money should not 
pass current at all. A large force of refiners and coiners were set 
to work at the mint to recoin the bad pieces as they were brought 
in into money of the standard purity. This was used to buy more 
of the old pieces as they were presented. In about nine months 
practically all the old coin had been brought in to the government 
in this way and recoined, and since that time there has been no 
change in the weight or purity of the English coinage. This was 
one of the most beneficial actions of the long reign of Elizabeth. 

301. The Statute of Apprentices. — The rates of wages provided 
for in the Statutes of Laborers 3 could no longer be enforced ; the 
regulations of the old craft gilds were no longer carried out, and in 
many other ways time had changed the relations between employers 

1 See p. 318. 

2 Standard fineness for the English silver coinage is 98 parts pure silver 
to 2 parts alloy. 3 See p. 244. 



338 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and employed. The government, however, had no idea of leaving 
wages unregulated or masters and men free to settle such matters 
between them, as it was at this time extending its regulations to 
new fields, not withdrawing from old ones. In 1563 was passed 
a long act for the regulation of labor, known as the " Statute of 
Apprentices." It required that in most trades engagements should 
be by the year, no employer being allowed to discharge his work- 
man, nor any workman being allowed to leave his employer, except 
at the end of a year of service and after a quarter of a year's 
warning. Every craftsman must go through an apprenticeship of 
seven years. No workman should travel from his home without a 
certificate from the authorities. All laborers were required to 
work in the summer from five in the morning to seven or eight in 
the evening, in the winter from dawn to dark. This was about 
equal to a twelve-hour day of labor. Wages were to be settled 
each year by the justices of the peace in each county, and no 
employer must give and no workman ask for more than the estab- 
lished rate of wages. This law remained in force for two hundred 
and fifty years. 

302. Pauperism. — Much difficulty with the poor was experi- 
enced at this time. During the middle ages there had been, of 
course, many who were unfortunate and miserably poor ; but the 
changes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had made the 
number far greater. Evictions, the dissolution of the monasteries 
and the inclosure of their lands, the abolition of the chantries, the 
weakening of the gilds, the more active competition in all lines, 
and the introduction of new methods of working, threw many out 
of work and produced a vast army of paupers. Those who had 
no employment, or who could not or would not work, traveled up 
and down the country, gathering in great numbers on the outskirts 
of the larger towns and indulging in all forms of lawlessness. 
Many laws had been passed in the last half century to punish 
vagabonds and to restrict to their home counties those who could 
not find work, but none had been effective. 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 339 

In the same year as the Statute of Apprentices, 1563, a law 
was passed " to the intent that idle and loitering persons and val- 
iant beggars may be avoided, and the impotent, feeble and lame, 
which are the poor in very deed, should be hereafter relieved and 
well provided for." According to this law collectors were to be 
appointed in each parish whose duty it was to make a list of all 
paupers, another list of all who were able to give help, to secure 
from the latter a promise to pay a certain amount each week for 
the support of the poor, and to collect this sum weekly and pay it 
over to those whom they had put upon the list as paupers. If any 
one who had means could not be persuaded to make a contribu- 
tion, he was to be forced to pay a tax assessed upon his property 
by the authorities. Since by this means all the poor would be 
looked after, they were forbidden by law to beg publicly in future ; 
and, as all those who could not work would in this way be provided 
for by their neighbors, all persons wandering through the country 
could be recognized and punished. 

It was thus that in the earlier years of her reign the queen, with 
the aid of her council and her parliament, sought to bring order and 
tranquillity to the country in these different spheres of national life. 

303. Elizabeth's Court. — Settlement and tranquillity are, how- 
ever, the last terms to apply to the court of Queen Elizabeth. It 
was a busy scene of festivities, negotiations, and plots. Foreign 
ministers came and went, seeking interviews with the queen or 
with Cecil ; meetings of the council were held to discuss matters of 
foreign or internal interest as they arose ; intrigues were discovered 
and those who had taken part in them were banished from the 
court, while new courtiers arose into influence ; sudden threats of 
war gave occasion for preparing ships or calling out the militia ; 
projects of foreign exploration or the extension of trade were con- 
sidered, and the financial difficulties of the queen were met in all 
kinds of irregular ways. Affairs of state and personal affairs, great 
matters and small, were mingled inextricably. Everything seems 
marked by change, chance, and caprice. It is only by looking 



340 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



carefully below the surface that the more permanent questions of 
the time can be distinguished. 

304. Mary Stuart. — Chief among these and among the per- 
sonal difficulties of Elizabeth was the rivalry of Mary Queen of 
Scots. Mary was the granddaughter of Margaret, the sister of 
Henry VIII, who married the king of Scotland. She was there- 
fore Elizabeth's cousin and the next heir to the throne. Indeed, 
if the marriage of Elizabeth's mother to Henry had been illegal, 
as all Roman Catholics claimed, Mary had a better right to the 
throne of England than Elizabeth. 1 

Although Mary was the daughter of the 
king of Scotland, born in that country, 
and nominally its queen from her infancy, 
she had been brought up in France, had 
married the heir to the French throne, 
and just after Elizabeth's accession had 
become, through her husband, queen of 
France. She threw down the gauntlet 
to Elizabeth by using the title "Queen 
of England, Scotland, and France." 
Although she made no effort at this time 
to make good her claim to the throne of England, a rivalry with 
Elizabeth thus began which was to last through their lives. Mary 
was eight years younger than Elizabeth, well educated, attractive, 
intelligent, and quite the equal of Elizabeth in shrewdness, though 




Mary Queen of Scots (a 
medal by the Italian 
engraver Primavera) 



1 The relationship of Mary and Elizabeth is shown by the following 
table. 

Henry VII, 1485-1509 



Henry VIII, 1 509-1 547 



Edward VI 
1 547-i553 



Mary 



Elizabeth 
1558-1603 



Margaret 



James V of Scotland 

Mary Queen of Scots 
born 1542, died 1587 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



34' 



her inferior in self-control. Her long residence at the French 
court had given her all the love of scheming for which that court 
was famous. She knew how to seem artless and confiding even 
when she was really working out some deep-laid "plan. She habit- 
ually used her charm as a woman to further political intrigues, 
and in her private life and amusements was frequently plotting to 
carry out political objects which she wanted to reach perhaps far 
in the future. The greatest difference between her and Elizabeth 










:jn. if W* Wfi 









The Palace of Holyrood, near Edinburgh 



was that the latter in her personal plans and feelings always retained 
her sense of responsibility and love for her own people and for 
England, and made her final decision according to their interests, 
while Mary sought more purely private ends and ambitions. 

Her husband was king of France only a year and a half. When 
he died, Mary, finding herself ill at ease in France and urged to 
come home by her subjects, determined to return to her Scottish 
dominions. She asked Elizabeth's permission to pass through 
England, but as she was unwilling to agree to a treaty definitely 
giving up her claim to the English throne, permission was refused. 



342 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

She then sailed directly for Scotland and in 1561 landed in her 
own kingdom and took up her residence in the ancient palace of 
Holyrood in Edinburgh. 

305. The Reformation in Scotland. — Mary found Scotland 
already far more radically Protestant than England. In Scotland 
the Reformation had been a movement carried out by the people 
in opposition to the government, instead of being a government 
measure but partially assented to by the people, as in England. 
Its leaders were a group of preachers, the most famous of whom 
was John Knox, a man of unrestrained religious zeal, but pure in 
life, masterful in character, fearless, and unswervingly devoted to 
Protestantism. His experiences were wide and varied, from slavery 
in the French galleys to a position of power in Scotland which 
enabled him by his eloquence to bring even Mary Stuart to tears 
for her later crimes. 

Mary's position in Scotland was a difficult one. She was a 
Roman Catholic queen in the midst of a population in the main 
strongly Protestant. The wealth, luxury, and brilliancy of the 
French court to which she had been accustomed found a harsh 
contrast in the poverty and rudeness of the Scottish nobility who 
surrounded her at Holyrood. Gifted, well educated, and used to 
French polish and courtliness, she found her lot cast in with court- 
iers who were rough, ignorant, and quarrelsome. The gayety and 
love of pleasure which belonged as much to Mary's nature and age 
as it did to her training was checked and opposed by the austerity 
of Scotch Protestantism, with its condemnation of all the vanities of 
the world. It is no wonder that she found her life irksome. 

306. Mary and Elizabeth. — The unavoidable contest with Eliza- 
beth soon began. Elizabeth had already before Mary's return 
to Scotland taken the part of the Scotch Protestants in a rising 
against their regent. Mary tried steadily to induce Elizabeth 
to acknowledge her as the heir to the English throne, should 
the queen have no children. Elizabeth as steadily avoided doing 
so. As was natural she did not like to think of her own death 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 343 

or failure of heirs. She feared besides that if Mary were once 
declared to be her successor her death would be so much a matter 
of desire to the English Roman Catholics and to some of the other 
powers of Europe that an invasion of England or her own assassi- 
nation might speedily follow. She therefore steadily refused to 
name either Mary or any one else as her successor. 

Mary soon began to use her position as queen of Scotland 
to intrigue for the crown of England also. With the object of 
strengthening her position with Roman Catholics in Scotland 
and in England she married in 1565 her cousin, Lord Darnley, 
one of her few Roman Catholic noblemen, and near in blood to 
both the Scotch and English crowns, but one of the most worth- 
less of men. This led to a revolt of the Protestant nobles, led 
by the queen's illegitimate brother, the earl of Murray. Mary 
promptly crushed them, however, and drove them into England 
as refugees. 

307. The Murder of Darnley. — But she had now entered on a 
policy of satisfying her own personal wishes and ambitions with- 
out consulting the interests of her subjects, and this carried her 
farther and farther. She soon learned to despise her weak and 
vicious husband and gave her confidence to an Italian secretary in 
her service named David Rizzio. Her husband became jealous of 
Rizzio, and with a company of nobles stabbed him to death in her 
very presence and summoned back the exiled Protestant lords, with 
whom, Roman Catholic as he was, he had made a temporary pact. 

Mary hid her resentment against her husband until she had 
won him over from the Protestant confederacy, gathered a loyal 
army, and again driven the recalled exiles abroad. Soon after this 
she bore a son who was named James, after her father, James V 
of Scotland, and who afterwards became king of both Scotland and 
England. Mary's pretended reconciliation with her husband and 
the birth of her son drew him closer to her, and an attack of ill- 
ness made him even more dependent upon her. He tried his best 
to win her affection and support. But Mary had fallen in love, 



344 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



with all the strength of her passionate nature, with the proud and 
fierce earl of Bothwell. 

Then happened an event the true circumstances of which have 
never been explained. The queen brought her husband to Kirk- 
a-Field, a half- ruined royal dwelling just inside the walls of Edin- 
burgh. Here she visited him daily for a week or more, returning 
usually to Holyrood to sleep. After she had left him at twelve 
o'clock one night the house of Kirk-a-Field was blown up with 
gunpowder, and the bodies of Darnley and his page were found in 
the morning near by, where they appeared to have been murdered 
during an effort to escape from the wrecked building. 

Whether the queen knew of the murder beforehand or not, 
her lover Bothwell certainly did, and either killed Darniey with 
his own hand or directed his death. Passion ran high and accu- 
sations against him were made and denied. Shortly afterward 
the queen went to Stirling. Here she was seized and carried off 
by Bothwell, as it is generally believed, with her own consent. 
While he held her in captivity she married him. 

308. Expulsion of Mary from Scotland. — By these actions 
Mary had at last roused to anger all classes of her subjects. Soon 
there was a rebellion. After a fierce battle, Bothwell was driven 
into flight and the queen was captured and imprisoned in a little 
castle in the middle of Loch Leven. Here she was forced to 
sign an abdication of the crown and to authorize the coronation 
of her infant son. From her captivity, however, Mary soon made 
her escape and fled to England, appealing to Elizabeth to provide 
her with an army with which to regain her kingdom and take 
revenge on her enemies. While Elizabeth was hesitating as to 
what action to take, the leaders of the rebellious Scots placed in 
the hands of the English council a certain silver casket captured 
from Bothwell containing a number of letters and other docu- 
ments. The letters seemed to be in Mary's handwriting and to 
have been sent by her to Bothwell during the months preceding 
her husband's murder. They showed not only knowledge of the 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 345 

plans for the murder, but base treachery and reckless willingness 
to sacrifice all her own and her country's interests to her lover. 

These " casket letters," as they have since been called, have 
been declared by many to be forgeries, and to this day no cer- 
tainty has been reached as to whether they were genuine or false. 
But they were believed then by Elizabeth's council to be genuine, 
and Elizabeth could not, therefore, if she had wished, venture to 
place Mary upon the throne of Scotland. As Mary's actions had 
deprived her of the support of the Scotch people, it seemed to 
Elizabeth to be on the whole to her own interest to keep Mary 
in England without either agreeing or refusing to help her. For 
nineteen years, therefore, from 1568 to 1587, the unfortunate 
Queen of Scots remained a prisoner in England, pining in cap- 
tivity and spending half a lifetime weaving fruitless plots. 

309. Elizabeth's Marriage Plans. — The people of England 
were anxious that Elizabeth should marry and have children who 
should inherit the throne after her. But whom should she marry? 
If she had consulted her own wishes she would gladly have mar- 
ried Sir Robert Dudley, whom she made earl of Leicester. But 
Dudley was already married, and although his wife died oppor- 
tunely at his castle of Cumnor, he was so deeply suspected 
of having had her murdered that the queen's marriage to him 
would have been a public scandal. Elizabeth recognized this, 
and, although she treated him as a lover and talked frequently of 
marrying him, probably never really expected to. The influence 
of all her best advisers was against him, as he was personally 
unworthy. Moreover, a queen can seldom choose her husband 
from mere motives of love, and least of all at that time could the 
political needs of the country be neglected in such a matter. 
The choice of an English husband would have been popular, but 
the queen did not approve of any English nobleman but Dudley. 

Elizabeth must have been conscious from her earliest life that 
the selection of her husband was purely a matter of politics. 
The choice of a prince of any one of the royal families of Europe 



346 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



for a husband would be the same as the choice of an alliance for 
England. Yet the policy of England was to avoid an alliance with 
any foreign country so close as to bring her into conflict with 
others. Partly because of this difficulty, partly from her love for 
Dudley, partly from her own fickleness and vacillation, her reign 
saw a succession of what were treated as courtships, but which 
were rather negotiations for foreign treaties. Even while Elizabeth 
was a young girl two or three different plans for her marriage had 
been proposed. Immediately after her accession to the throne, 
Philip II, who had been her sister Mary's husband, offered to marry 
her and continue the alliance with Spain. 
This proposal was declined. Through 
the succeeding years one suitor after 
another either visited the English court 
in person or was proposed and discussed 
by ambassadors, ministers, the queen, 
and the court ladies. The Scotch earl 
of Arran, Eric, king of Sweden, the arch- 
duke Charles of Austria, Philibert of 
Savoy, Charles IX of France, the duke 
of Anjou, the duke of Alencon pass in a 
seemingly endless procession of suitors 
through the chronicles of the time. The 
queen was more than forty years old be- 
fore the comedy ceased to be played. 

The negotiations were often spun out merely to serve a political 
purpose ; the vanity of Elizabeth was pleased with the flattery of 
constant love letters and love speeches, and she liked to think of 
marrying. She dallied with the various plans as long as she dared, 
and more than once made not only her suitors but her ministers 
believe her intentions were serious, but her good sense, her devo- 
tion to the best interests of England, and her unwillingness to lose 
the freedom of her single state always prevented the marriage from 
taking place, and she grew old and died unmarried. 




The Duke of Alencon 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 347 

310. Increase of Puritanism. — The religious settlement intro- 
duced by Elizabeth was preserved with difficulty. The Puritans 
became constantly more numerous. Some of the bishops, many 
of the parish ministers, and an ever-increasing number of the 
people were opposed to the ceremonies of the established church 
and even to some of its doctrines and its mode of government. 
The Reformation in England began to interest the mass of the 
people. Many congregations and their pastors dropped the form 
of service required by law ; " prophesy ings," or meetings of clergy- 
men and laymen for the discussion of religious subjects, were held ; 
and at London new congregations were organized which met not 
in the parish churches but in other buildings and followed other 
religious practices. In parliament a majority of the members of 
the House of Commons were Puritans and introduced law after 
law intended to make changes in the established church in the 
direction of more complete Protestantism. 

Against these proceedings Elizabeth took vigorous action. In 
1570 Thomas Cartwright, a professor at Cambridge, was removed 
from his position for Puritan teaching ; the newly formed congre- 
gations in London were broken up, those who attended them 
imprisoned, and all irregular religious meetings forbidden ; cler- 
gymen who refused to accept in their entirety the Thirty-Nine 
Articles or to agree to use only the prayer book in public worship 
were deprived of their benefices. Somewhat greater uniformity in 
the church was thus obtained for a while, but it was only a seeming 
uniformity. The real divisions were still great and constantly 
becoming greater. 

311. The Counter Reformation. — The Roman Catholics also 
were becoming more active if not more numerous. Thir was 
principally due to what is known as the " counter reformation." 
This movement on the continent consisted partly of moral reform 
in the old church, partly of a clearer statement of its doctrines, 
and partly of more active personal efforts to stem the tide of 
Protestant influence. The more earnest Roman Catholic leaders, 



348 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

realizing the need of reforms in the church if it were not to con- 
tinue to be the object of the just criticism and successful attacks 
of the Protestants, chose better men to the papacy and brought 
about the choice of better bishops. The bishops made strenuous 
efforts to secure greater learning and more devout lives among the 
lower clergy. The doctrines of the church were put in more 
definite form and many doubtful points settled by the decrees 
of a great church council held at Trent between the years 1545 
and 1563. 

312 . The Jesuits. — New power was introduced into Roman 
Catholicism by the foundation in 1540 of the Society of Jesus. 
This was a monastic order formed by a group of young Spanish 
students under the leadership of Ignatius Loyola. They took 
the usual monastic vows, but added to them an additional oath 
of special obedience to the pope. Their organization was pecul- 
iar and effective. They were governed like a military body by 
a "general," who was in direct communication with the pope, 
and by a " provincial " in each of the principal countries of 
Europe. Absolute obedience to these superiors was a fundamental 
rule of their order. Any member of the order was bound to go 
where he was sent, to devote himself to the work appointed him, 
and to carry out unquestioningly his instructions in the form they 
were given him. The education and training required of a candi- 
date before he was admitted to full membership in the order was 
long and severe, so that a Jesuit was always a well-educated and 
thoroughly trained man. Their enthusiasm and devotion were equal 
to their training. They took up as special tasks, education, the 
conversion of the heathen abroad, and the reconversion of Protes- 
tants at home. They soon became famous and influential in almost 
every country in Europe, Asia, and America. Such men, burning 
with devotion, were not likely to remain away from England because 
the laws forbade mass to be performed there and required all Eng- 
lishmen to attend the service of the established church. Several 
made their way into England, disguised as ordinary travelers, and 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 349 

did much to strengthen in their faith those Englishmen who had 
always remained Roman Catholics, and to win back many who 
had fallen from their faith or weakly conformed to the state re- 
ligion. A college was established by some English exiles at 
Douai on the Belgian coast just opposite England, for the train- 
ing of young English Roman Catholics, many of whom became 
priests and returned secretly to England. 

Thus by the middle of Elizabeth's reign the Roman Catholics 
were really a greater problem than they had been at its beginning. 
They were probably not more numerous, but they were stronger 
and more earnest in their belief and in their devotion to their 
church. 

313. Political Danger from the Roman Catholics. — This state of 
affairs was a constant danger to Elizabeth. The imprisonment of 
Mary Queen of Scots did not make her any less dangerous as a 
Roman Catholic candidate for the throne. In some ways it made 
her cause stronger. The Roman Catholic nobles felt it a duty 
and honor to succor their mistress in her distress. The king of 
Spain, when he failed to obtain Elizabeth's alliance, planned to 
secure Mary's release and enthronement in England as an ally for 
himself. Her presence, therefore, made her a permanent center 
of intrigue. In 1569, soon after Mary's arrival in England, there 
was a rebellion in her favor on the part of some of the nobles. 
This was soon put down, although it gave occasion for the inflic- 
tion of bloody punishment on those who had taken part in it. 
In 1570 Elizabeth was excommunicated by the pope, and a bull 
proclaiming her deposition was found nailed on the door of the 
dwelling of the bishop of London. 

More severe laws against the Roman Catholics were now passed. 
All who brought papal bulls into England, and all who secured 
the conversion of Englishmen, or who were themselves converted, 
were declared to be traitors and were to be punished as such. 
Later the " Recusancy Laws " were passed. These imposed fines 
and imprisonment upon persons saying or hearing mass, and 



350 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

additional penalties to those before imposed were levied upon those 
absenting themselves from the regular church services. Campion 
and Parsons, two influential Jesuits, were arrested and put to the 
torture. Parsons escaped, but Campion was executed as a traitor. 
Several " seminary priests," as the graduates of Douai were called, 
were also captured and some of them hung. Notwithstanding 
this severity a serious plot was soon discovered. Philip was to 
lead an army into England, Mary was to be liberated and to 
marry the Roman Catholic duke of Norfolk, the highest noble in 
England, Elizabeth was to be deposed and Mary crowned, and 
Roman Catholicism again to become the religion of the country. 
This is known as the "Ridolfi Plot," from an Italian merchant in 
England who acted as the messenger between the parties con- 
cerned in it. All was discovered before any action had been taken, 
and the Duke of Norfolk was beheaded for his share in it. From 
this time forward an invasion either by Spain or France, or by the 
two countries together, to help the Roman Catholics dethrone 
Elizabeth was a recognized danger. 

314. England and the Continent. — Various causes, some of 
them the good fortune, some the wise policy of England, pre- 
vented this invasion from taking place. One cause was the internal 
troubles of both Spain and France. The Netherlanders, who 
were under the government of Spain, in 1572 rose in revolt and 
fought for their independence under the prince of Orange through 
the whole remainder of the sixteenth century. The effort to put 
down this rebellion kept the troops of Philip of Spain occupied 
and exhausted his funds so that he was in no position to enter 
into a struggle with England. From motives of policy Elizabeth 
helped to keep this rebellion alive by occasionally sending money 
to the prince of Orange and by allowing English volunteers to 
serve under his banner. But she hated rebels and gave the Dutch 
but little consistent or whole-hearted encouragement. France 
also was torn by civil wars between the Catholics and the Hugue- 
nots, as the French Protestants were called. To the Huguenots 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 35 1 

Elizabeth likewise gave some reluctant encouragement, so that they 
might remain strong enough to cripple the royal power of France. 

A second way in which the danger of invasion was avoided was 
by playing off the two great continental powers against one 
another. England always helped to keep up the quarrels between 
Spain and France. She never herself quarreled with one of them 
without showing herself at the same time more friendly to the 
other. The interminable marriage negotiations of Elizabeth also 
served as a useful means of accomplishing this purpose. So long 
as a marriage with a French prince was in prospect there could be 
no probability of an invasion from France, because such a marriage 
would mean a friendly alliance between the two countries. Spain, 
on the other hand, must for the time postpone invasion for fear 
she might have to fight both England and England's proposed ally. 
The same security against France was obtained when a Spanish 
candidate for her hand was being considered. 

But the time came when neither the internal difficulties of 
France and Spain nor the queen's skillful pitting of them against 
one another was sufficient to keep them from secretly planning a 
joint invasion. The plots formed by Roman Catholics for the 
dethronement or assassination of Elizabeth and the release of 
Mary usually included the plan of asking help from abroad. 
They were, however, one after another discovered, and several of 
those concerned in them put to death. 

After 1583 it became evident that these plots were known to 
the Spanish government, to at least one party in France, to Mary 
Queen of Scots in her imprisonment in England, as well as to 
many Roman Catholic Englishmen, some living abroad and some 
at home. The moment Elizabeth's assassination should occur 
a Spanish army from Flanders or a French army from Normandy, 
or both, would be sent to England, Mary would be released, and 
the whole character of the English government changed. When 
the complicity of Spain in one of these conspiracies became evident 
in 1584, the queen sent the Spanish ambassador out of England. 



\\ 



352 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

315. The Parties which favored Elizabeth. — Thus, after Eliza- 
beth had been queen for twenty-five years, her position might seem 
at first glance to be no more secure than when she had ascended 
the throne. This, however, was not the case. The generation 
which had now grown up had known no other religious forms than 
those of the established church, and their feeling towards it was 
very different from that of the previous generation. What their 
fathers had accepted as the best compromise or as a matter of 
small interest, they had become really attached to. The forms 
and ceremonies of the church of England as established by law 
had become dear to many for their own sake. Such persons were 
earnest supporters of Elizabeth's government on religious grounds. 

Others had learned to feel a patriotic respect and affection for 
the government which had kept England free and independent 
of other countries and in internal peace for such a long time. 
These were ready to give it support on political grounds. 

316. Industrial Growth. — The English people were moreover 
coming to have new interests, which did more to increase the 
general strength of the nation and the popularity of Elizabeth's 
government than any of the direct efforts of the queen and her 
ministers to solve the religious and political difficulties of the 
time. The Merchants Adventurers, who had obtained the recog- 
nition of Henry VII, and the other traders who were even then 
venturing from year to year into new ports, had grown during the 
sixteenth century from few to many, and their enterprise carried 
them constantly to new ports. There was a much greater variety 
of goods to export than before. The troubles of the Reformation 
had driven from the continent many workmen, who came with 
their families to England seeking a refuge and bringing with 
them their skill and their knowledge of manufacturing processes. 
Several groups of Flemings, Dutch, and Walloons, fleeing from the 
persecutions of Alva, the Spanish governor of the Netherlands, 
obtained permission to settle in Sandwich, Norwich, and other 
towns. There they established and afterwards taught the English 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 353 

the weaving of new and fine kinds of woolen and linen goods and 
other industries, Huguenot silk weavers and manufacturers of 
other fine goods also came from France, Under these influences 
and in the general activity of the time there was so much weaving 
of cloth that wool ceased altogether to be exported, being all 
woven into cloth within England, and great quantities of this 
were sent abroad in the way of trade. 

317. Commercial Growth. — English merchants did not merely 
sell English manufactured goods abroad, but made their way to 
ports of the world where they could buy goods that could be 
brought home and sold in England. They traded to the ports 
of Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. Cargoes were 
taken to the Mediterranean Sea, and English traders were seen in 
the ports of Syria and Asia Minor in one direction, and in the 
towns of the Baltic in another. 

But in all these places they had to compete with the other 
nations who had been before them, and from time to time ports 
were closed when war or some threat of war interfered. Still 
bolder merchants and explorers, therefore, sailed away to more dis- 
tant shores in search of opportunities to buy and sell. As early as 
the reign of Mary two bold navigators, Willoughby and Chancellor, 
started on a voyage around the North Cape, hoping by a north- 
east passage to reach China and the East Indies. Willoughby 
and all his crew were frozen to death or starved while their vessel 
was held fast in the ice. Chancellor with the other vessel made 
his way into the White Sea, went by boat up the Dwina, and finally 
reached Moscow. With this region a regular trade was soon 
opened up. An association of merchants known as the Muscovy 
or Russia Company was formed, and when an ambassador came 
from Russia to England a few years afterwards there were a hun- 
dred and fifty merchants of that company to receive him in state. 

To gain greater strength and protection it was customary at 
that time for merchants trading to any one country to form 
themselves into a company and obtain a charter from the crown 



354 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

granting them the monopoly of that trade under certain regula- 
tions, on the model of the Merchants Adventurers. Thus the 
Levant or Turkey Company was formed to trade with the eastern 
Mediterranean lands, an Eastland or Baltic Company to trade with 
Poland and Prussia, a Barbary Company to trade with northern 
and a Guinea Company to trade with western Africa, and just 
at the end of Elizabeth's reign one which was destined to become 
far the greatest of them all, — the East India Company. Sup- 
ported in some cases by these companies, in others by small 
groups of adventurers, many half- exploring, half-trading expedi- 
tions were sent out during the latter half of the reign. 

318. Attempted Settlements in America. — These companies 
and the expeditions they sent out had no idea beyond the open- 
ing up of trade with the native races of the various countries that 
they reached. But some men looked farther ahead and planned 
settlements which should not only form the bases of trade but 
should become parts of England beyond the seas. In 1578 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert obtained a grant from the queen authoriz- 
ing him to establish settlements in any unoccupied country. In 
1583 he established some colonists in Newfoundland, but they 
perished on land and their leader was lost soon afterwards at sea. 

His patent was then regranted to his half-brother, Sir Walter 
Raleigh. He sought to establish a colony farther south on the 
American coast, with which he made himself familiar by sending 
out exploring expeditions. It was by Raleigh's favor with the 
queen that the name Virginia, after the virgin queen, was given 
to the part of North America that the English claimed, and he 
introduced into England from that country the use of tobacco and 
potatoes. Three successive bodies of colonists were sent out by 
Raleigh under charge of Sir Richard Grenville and John White, 
between 1585 and 1587, but they all either returned to England 
or were destroyed by famine, disease, or the Indians. Raleigh lost 
his fortune in the attempted settlements and in his explorations, 
but he never lost his keen interest in discoveries or his belief in 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 355 

the future of American colonization. In 1602 another attempt 
at settlement was made by Bartholomew Gosnold, but this also 
was a failure. 

319. The Search for a Northwest Passage. — The great object 
of search in many of the other exploring expeditions of the time 
was a northern route to India and China. As the Spaniards already 
held control of the southern parts of America and the West Indies, 
attention was turned to the possibility of finding a passage west- 
ward to India around the northern coast of North America. In 
1576 Martin Frobisher organized and led an expedition to Amer- 
ica with this object. He discovered and entered the strait and 
bay which still bear his name, but got no farther west, for this 
and two later trips in the next two years were wasted in gathering 
cargoes of a certain black stone from an arctic island, which he 
and Queen Elizabeth's assayers at first thought was silver ore. 
A few years afterward, in 1585, John Davis, a bold and skillful 
navigator, made the first of three trips which carried him up 
through the strait which is also named after him, but his voyages, 
for all their heroism, brought back little more than new tales of 
suffering and privation in the icy north. Hudson and Baffin soon 
followed, each threading his way a little farther through the maze 
of land and water to the northwest. The spirit of adventure could 
not resist the attractions of this search for a northwest passage, 
filled with danger and unproductive of profit as it proved to be. 

320. Hawkins's Voyages. — Other restless English traders 
could not content themselves with such fruitless explorations and 
unproductive voyages when they had reason to believe that far 
more profitable ventures might be made in other directions. A 
source of almost unlimited gain existed in the slave trade between 
Africa and the Spanish settlements in America and the West Indies. 
Negro slaves had been early introduced from the west coast of 
Africa into the Spanish settlements in America. The Spanish 
government, however, disapproved of slave trading and only 
allowed negroes to be imported into the American colonies in 



356 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

small numbers, by favored traders, and on payment of a heavy 
duty. It was well known that the Spanish colonists in the 
West Indies, Mexico, and South America were eager to buy 
slaves whether their home government approved it or not, and 
that negroes would probably bring a good price and find ready 
sale if brought there. 

In 1562 John Hawkins of Plymouth with another captain fitted 
out three vessels, sailed away to the coast of Sierra Leone, cap- 
tured or bought about three hundred negroes, and then made 
their way to the Spanish colony of St. Domingo, into which they 
pretended to have been driven by stress of weather. The gov- 
ernor, in spite of orders from home, made but slight resistance to 
the English adventurer's proposal to sell some of the negroes to 
obtain money to pay his expenses, and eventually Hawkins dis- 
posed of most of his wretched cargo, bought some hides, and 
returned to England. The Spanish government protested against 
this action and forbade its repetition. The king of Spain, in 
addition to his opposition to the trade in negro slaves, wanted no 
intrusion of English traders into the Spanish colonies. Never- 
theless Hawkins was soon again on the coast of Africa and then 
in the West Indies with some hundreds of negroes, and by 
threatening the governors and small military guards at various 
Spanish ports he again disposed of his slaves. So in voyage after 
voyage, in some of which members of the queen's council and 
even the queen herself invested money, Hawkins and other Eng- 
lish traders pursued their odious trade, — kidnapping African 
negroes and then forcing their way into the Spanish colonies and 
finding a profitable market for their wares. 

321. Conflicts in the West Indies. — These voyages gave fre- 
quent occasion for conflicts with the Spaniards on the water. 
More than once English traders fought with Spanish men of war, 
and occasionally captured Spanish trading vessels. When Eng- 
lishmen were captured and held as prisoners, Spaniards were 
seized as hostages for them, and Spanish goods were confiscated 




357 



358 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

in reprisal. English voyages to the West Indies became more 
and more like piracy. 

There was no war between England and Spain, but the Span- 
iards were Roman Catholics and the English were not, and enough 
excuse for hostility was found in that fact. Most of the seamen 
'from the English trading towns were Puritans, and in the bitter 
religious hatred of those days believed that in righting against 
Roman Catholics they were attacking the enemies of God. They, 
on the other hand, looked upon the Protestant English as little bet- 
ter than heathen. Thus trading enterprise, supplemented by reli- 
gious hatred, was fast drawing Englishmen and Spaniards into war 
at sea, while their governments continued to be at peace on shore. 
322. Francis Drake. — In 1572 Francis Drake, a young sea 
captain, a relative of Hawkins, and like him a Devonshire man, 
sailed directly to Spanish America with the unconcealed intention 
of pillaging the rich Spanish possessions. He ran into the West 

Indian harbors, captured vessels 
lying there, seized what he wished, 
burned towns, and killed those who 
resisted. He intercepted and plun- 
dered the train of mules bringing 
gold and silver from the mines of 
Peru across the Isthmus of Panama, 
and Drake himself saw from the 
mountains the blue waters of the 
Pacific. He returned to England 
loaded with booty, having captured 
a Spanish treasure ship on the way 
home. This was piracy pure and 

_ , simple, but the easy conscience and 

Sir Francis Drake , , , . , r-r,i- , 

shrewd diplomacy of Elizabeth 

approved rather than condemned, and she laughed with the rest 

of England at the exploit, shared the booty, and put off the 

Spanish ambassador with fair words. 




THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 359 

In 1577, the year of Frobisher's second trip to seek the north- 
west passage, Drake organized and led another expedition which 
was destined to become the most famous of all the voyages made 
from Elizabethan England. With five vessels and a company of 
about a hundred and fifty men, well provided with arms and stores, 
and none except the leader knowing where they were going, they 
sailed away to the westward. They reached the West Indies, but 
instead of cruising there sailed southward along the coast of South 
America till they reached the Straits of Magellan. These had 
been penetrated only once, by the great Portuguese navigator 
who had left them his name. Drake and his party made their way 
safely through, but were beaten about by terrible storms as they 
emerged into the Pacific. One of the vessels now turned back, 
three others were lost or destroyed, and mutiny was only crushed 
by bringing to trial and execution upon the barren shore one of the 
gentlemen of the expedition who was trying to stir up sedition. 
But they had reached at last the west coast of South America 
lined with rich Spanish settlements all unsuspicious of any ene- 
mies in those distant waters. 

After wintering in the shelter of the coast, Drake's one remain- 
ing vessel, the little " Pelican," with less than a hundred men, 
passed up the coasts of Chile and Peru. Appearing suddenly in 
port after port, they seized gold, silver, and precious stones, cap- 
tured and rifled rich galleons, and left their victims dumbfounded 
while they sailed on northward to the coast of North America. 
They followed this up as far as the present site of San Francisco, 
hoping to find a passageway through the continent home again. 
Finding none and dreading pursuit, they determined to sail on 
westward. The brave little ship crossed the vast Pacific, threaded 
its way through the East Indies, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, 
and finally reentered Plymouth harbor almost three years after 
Drake and his crew had left it. This was the second voyage around 
the world. The " Pelican " was loaded with bars of gold, boxes of 
precious stones, and tons of silver, amounting in value to some 



360 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

four million dollars. The booty was divided among all those 
who had shared in the responsibility, the expense, or the labor 
of the expedition. The queen, ministers, courtiers, London citi- 
zens, Drake himself, and his companions all shared in the plunder 
of the Spaniards. 

323. The Channel Freebooters. — Those who took part in and 
profited by such expeditions might excuse them on the ground of 
religion, and claim that England and Spain were so nearly at war 
as to justify their subjects in treating one another as enemies. In 
the English Channel and adjacent waters there were, however, . 
many English freebooters who could not plead even that justifica- 
tion. The religious troubles in England under Edward and Mary 
had sent many refugees abroad, first Roman Catholics, then 
Protestants. Many of these instead of going into hopeless exile 
had fitted out vessels in the southwestern and Irish harbors, had 
gathered around themselves wild, lawless crews of sailors, and had 
made use of any opportunities for plunder that the foreign wars 
and confusions might throw in their way. 

The more settled conditions under Elizabeth had brought many 
of them back into the regular service of the crown ; but even yet 
the landed gentry of the western counties who held lands along the 
rivers and harbors, merchants of the seaport towns, and restless 
adventurers held shares in vessels which were sometimes engaged 
in regular trade but more often occupied in piracy. They seized 
Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and even French and Dutch vessels 
that came through the Channel, stripped them of the most valuable 
parts of their cargoes, and then slipped away to some distant 
harbor or on a trading or fishing voyage. In this way hundreds 
of the small vessels of those times, owned by gentry and mer- 
chants, under reckless captains and filled with bold and skillful 
sailors, were little if any better than freebooters or pirates. The 
queen and her ministers were not able to keep them in order and 
prevent their depredations. Probably they did not try very hard, 
for the freebooters were a thorn in the side of the Spaniards, with 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 361 

whom war was always a possibility, and their trade gave occupa- 
tion to disorderly men who might have made still more trouble at 
home if they did not have this as a safety valve. 

324. The English on the Sea. — So on all the shores of Europe 
and on the coasts of America, in various forms of activity ran- 
ging from legitimate trading to actual piracy, English merchants, 
explorers, and sailors were planning settlements, gaining footholds 
for trade, winning a part of the world's commerce, and seizing the 
valuable freightage of the vessels of others. The interests of such 
men were largely drawn away from the internal affairs of England. 
They looked upon questions of religion and politics principally 
from the point of view of their effect on their own enterprises. 
They valued the government of Queen Elizabeth because it gave 
them the opportunities they needed. She herself sympathized 
heartily with the adventure, the boldness, even the recklessness of 
those who were carrying England's name and trade so far abroad, 
English national feeling was becoming stronger and stronger, and 
all this gathered around the queen. The generation of English- 
men who were growing up were coming to identify Elizabeth with 
patriotism, and to hold patriotism dearer than ever before in 
English history. Thus, although Roman Catholic enthusiasm, 
gathering around Mary Queen of Scots and supported by Spain and 
France, seemed to be making Elizabeth's position more difficult 
after the middle years of her reign, other influences far stronger 
were making her position more secure. She had become popular 
even with the Puritans and with many of the Roman Catholics. 

325. Babington's Plot. — Nevertheless plotting still continued 
among those who were most strongly attached to Mary and most 
enthusiastically devoted to Roman Catholicism. In 1586 what is 
known as " Babington's Plot " was discovered. A Roman Catholic 
gentleman of that name, along with five others who had been 
admitted by Elizabeth . to service at court, bound themselves by 
an oath to kill the queen and release Mary. They were in corre- 
spondence with many others, including Mary herself, and this 



362 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

correspondence fell into the hands of the queen's advisers. With 
great astuteness and the use of rather unscrupulous means Wal- 
singham contrived to let the plotting continue but to have all 
letters pass through his hands. Finally when the evidence was 
complete he had the conspirators arrested and executed, together 
with several of those who knew of their project. 

326. Trial and Execution of Mary Queen of Scots. — But this 
time the matter was carried farther. Mary herself was brought 
before a commission made up of most of the nobles of England ; 
testimony as to her knowledge and encouragement of this and of 
other plots for the assassination of the queen was given ; and she 
was declared by the commission to be guilty of the attempted 
murder of Elizabeth. 

Parliament met soon afterwards and petitioned Elizabeth to order 
Mary's execution, in accordance with the judgment of the com- 
mission. Elizabeth hesitated long, authorizing and then recall- 
ing and then again 
half consenting to the 
carrying out of the 
warrant of execution, 
which she had already 
brought herself to 

sign. She might well 
The Signature of Queen Elizabeth , 

hesitate to put to 

death her cousin and rival. A woman, a relative, a queen even 

after nineteen years of imprisonment, a guest* — Mary had personal 

claims to protection which made the necessity for her execution 

at best a hard and ungracious one. Yet the execution was a state 

necessity. Elizabeth at last placed the warrant in the hands of 

Davison, one of the secretaries of state, but gave him only an 

ambiguous and partial permission to carry it out. Finally the 

queen's council took on themselves the responsibility, and in 

February, 1587, Mary was beheaded in the hall of the castle of 

Fotheringay. 




THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 363 

The pathos of Mary's position, the scene in the hall of execu- 
tion, her dignity on the scaffold, the lifting of the gory head aloft 
as it fell from the block, with the usual cry, " So perish all ene- 
mies of the queen," made a dramatic close to a career whose sad- 
ness was extreme, whatever side may be taken in the dispute 
which has ever since raged around Mary Stuart. When the exe- 
cution was once accomplished Elizabeth declared loudly that she 
had never given her sanction to it, and that her councilors had 
mistaken her intention. To prove this she treated her whole 
council with extreme severity of speech, dismissed Secretary 
Davison from her service, and ordered him to be brought to trial. 
He was fined heavily and ordered into imprisonment. He and 
his family were ruined to give the queen a convenient reply to 
make to the protests of France and Scotland. 

327. War with Spain. — The long imprisonment of the Queen 
of Scots, while it had brought danger upon Elizabeth by encour- 
aging plots for her release, had been one of the securities against 
war with other countries by postponing the question of the suc- 
cession to the English throne. Now the war with Spain, which 
had been so often threatened and which had been avoided only 
by the efforts of both governments, finally broke out. It had long 
been inevitable. The help given by England to the Netherlands 
rebels, the forcible intrusion of English merchants into the West 
Indian colonies, the attacks of Drake on the Spanish settlements 
in America and Spanish treasure vessels at sea, had piled up an 
account for which the Spaniards must some time demand settle- 
ment. The religious duty to depose a ruler excommunicated by 
the pope, when added to the other incentives, would have been 
quite enough to lead Philip long before to declare war against 
England had not the condition of the Spanish treasury, the dis- 
putes with France, and the trouble in the Netherlands made war 
against England so far always inopportune. Now, however, Mary 
Queen of Scots had bequeathed her claim to the English throne 
to Philip, and left her dying injunction upon him to carry out 



364 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the long- threatened invasion. The vessels and troops which had 
been collected in the ports of Spain, professedly to send against 
the Netherlands, were just as available against England, and their 
true destination was no longer concealed. Drake took time by 
the forelock by sailing boldly into the harbor of Cadiz, destroying 
many of the great ships of war, and capturing other Spanish ves- 
sels along the coast. He described it as " singeing the king of 
Spain's beard." Queen Elizabeth had consistently avoided open 
war, however much she had allowed help to be given to the 
Netherlanders and given her tacit consent when Drake and other 
sea rovers used their own and the royal ships to attack the Span- 
iards. Even yet she tried to keep the peace, which had lasted 
unbroken for almost thirty years, but war was no longer to be 
avoided. 

328. The Spanish Armada. — During the early months of 1588 
the great fleet which the Spaniards proudly called the " Invincible 
Armada " was at last made ready in the Spanish harbors. In 
July it appeared in the English Channel, bound for the coast of 
Flanders, where it was to receive on board and convoy a great 
Spanish army to the coast of England. 

Hurried preparations had been made to meet the invasion. 
The English militia were warned to gather at various places of 
rendezvous; a camp was formed at Tilbury on the Thames below 
London, where Elizabeth visited and addressed the troops ; bea- 
cons were prepared on every hilltop along the southern and east- 
ern coasts ; and vessels under the command of Howard, Hawkins, 
Drake, Frobisher, and other famous captains were gathered in vari- 
ous harbors from Plymouth to Dover. In addition to the queen's 
ships, volunteers came from every port. The freebooters of the 
Channel now found congenial occupation and half justified the 
existence so long allowed to them. Lord Howard of Effingham, 
Lord Admiral of England, was put in supreme command of the 
fleet, and through the country measures were taken to prevent 
Roman Catholics from giving help to the invaders. 




365 



366 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

July 30, 1588, the great galleons 1 sailed proudly up the Channel 
in a long line before a southwest wind. The fighting soon began. 
As they passed one of the Channel ports after another they were 
attacked in the rear by the English ships issuing from their har- 
bors and taking advantage of their windward position to attack 
the Spaniards at their leisure, 2 and a running fight was fought 
in the Channel. The advantages of number, size, and equipment 
belonged to the Spaniards. The English vessels on the other 
hand, though smaller, were built on a model that made them 
swifter and more easily handled than the Spanish galleons. They 
hung, therefore, around the skirts of the Spanish fleet, attacking it 
only as they had favorable opportunity, avoiding a general fight, 
and merely cutting off a few vessels which became separated 
from the rest. When, however, the Spanish fleet had reached 
the narrowest part of the Channel, just between Calais and Dover, 
a more vigorous contest took place, during which a number of 
the badly handled, heavy Spanish vessels were sunk or driven 
ashore on the shallow coasts of France and Flanders. The 
Armada sailed into the roads of Calais ; but the wind had risen 
to a gale and no safe anchorage could be found there, nor could 
they enter the difficult harbors of Flanders. So in a few days the 
Spanish fleet, broken, scattered, and deprived of its best com- 
manders and pilots, was on the North Sea and being driven far to 
the north by the wind behind it. One part of the English fleet 
returned to the Channel to guard against other attacks, while 
another part followed the great Armada, now reduced from one 
hundred and fifty sail which had left Spain to about a hundred and 
twenty, up the eastern coast of England. In the wild storm these 
determined to reach Spain again by a desperate voyage around 
the north of Scotland and Ireland. There were sad wrecks along 

1 The Spanish galleons were large vessels intended primarily for the 
voyages to America. They were built so as to be available either for war 
ships, transport vessels for troops, or freight ships. 

2 See Macaulay's poem, The Armada. 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 367 

the Western Islands and the coast of Ireland, and eventually only 
one third of the fleet and much less than one third of its force of 
men made their way home again. The running fight in the Chan- 
nel, the wind which had driven the vessels into the North Sea, 
and the watchfulness and perseverance of the English sailors had 
made the attack of the Armada fruitless and saved England from 
one of the most serious invasions with which she had ever been 
threatened. 

This defense was followed up by a naval attack on the coast 
of Spain the next year, under the leadership of Drake and Norris, 
in which some towns and vessels were destroyed. For the next 
ten years the war with Spain continued. It was mostly at sea and 
often degenerated into mere privateering on the part of the English. 
Her sailors were almost invariably successful, and both on sea and 
land the warlike prestige of Spain was diminished. 

329. The Successful Period of Elizabeth's Reign. — The last 
ten years of Elizabeth's reign were its period of greatest glory 
and success. After the execution of Mary and the defeat of the 
Armada the Roman Catholics had no possible prospect or indeed 
desire of overthrowing the Protestant settlement. Their highest 
hope was to be allowed to live without disturbance of their religion 
and under only moderate political disabilities. The danger of 
invasion from abroad and of an overthrow of Elizabeth's rule was 
also over. Spain was not strong enough, the parties in France 
which wished to live at peace with England had become supreme, 
and, above all, the national patriotic spirit of the English people 
had finally overcome all other sympathies or ambitions of any class 
of her population. There was never any time after the crisis of 
the Armada when the people would willingly let their religious or 
any other preferences stand in the way of their interests and 
feelings as Englishmen. 

330. The Elizabethan Poor Law. — Even the internal social 
problems were gradually brought nearer to a settlement. The 
early poor laws, it is true, did not solve the problem. In the 



368 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

middle of Elizabeth's reign it was declared that " all the parts of 
the realm of England and Wales be presently with rogues, vaga- 
bonds, and sturdy beggars exceedingly pestered." Vagabonds, 
wanderers, and those who in modern times are called " tramps," 
were especially objected to and had been frequently declared pun- 
ishable by law unless they could show a license from some justice 
of the peace allowing them to travel and beg. A list of objection- 
able persons given in one of the laws will give a glimpse of the 
wandering classes of society in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
The wording of the law is slightly changed for purposes of clear- 
ness. " All idle persons "using subtle, crafty, and unlawful games 
or plays and some of them feigning themselves to have knowl- 
edge in physiognomy and palmistry; all persons being whole 
and mighty in body and able to labor, yet not using any lawful 
merchandise, craft, or mistery ; all fencers, bearwards, common 
players in interludes, and minstrells, unless they belong to the 
company of some baron of the realm; all jugglers, peddlers, 
trickers, and petty chapmen ; all common laborers able in body 
loitering and refusing to work for reasonable wages; all scholars 
of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge that go about beg- 
ging, not being authorized under the seal of those universities ; 
all shipmen pretending losses by sea; and all prisoners lately 
released from jail." All such as these were to be punished 
severely if they continued to rove through the country. Accord- 
ing to one law any person declared to be a vagabond shall be 
" stripped naked from the middle upward and shall be openly 
whipped until his or her body be bloody." According to another 
the sturdy beggar was to be " grievously whipped and burnt through 
the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an 
inch about." 

Houses of correction were to be built in which those who were 
strong in body but unwilling or unable to find occupation were to 
be confined and made to work. Taxes were imposed and volun- 
tary collections made to obtain money to buy materials and put 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 369 

willing laborers to work. For the poor who could not work alms- 
houses were built in addition to the. weekly collections taken up 
tu support them. Finally at the very close of Elizabeth's reign 
a long act was passed combining all these provisions and estab- 
lishing overseers of the poor in each parish. These should regu- 
larly tax for the support of the poor all people of any means and 
expend for the poor the amounts collected. This law of 1601 
remained the established poor law of England down to 1834. 

331. Increasing Wealth of England. — If there were still many 
paupers to be supported, this was not because England as a whole 
was not prosperous. The long peace at home and abroad, the 
improvements in agriculture, the increase of manufactures, and 
the spread of commerce had all combined to raise the general 
level of prosperity, comfort, and expenditure and to make a much 
larger class of rich men than had ever existed before in England. 
Among the lower classes and the farming population this change 
showed itself principally in the building of cottages and farm- 
houses in which there were chimneys and glass windows, in the 
use' of plates and spoons of pewter instead of wood, in the use of 
mattresses and pillows instead of straw pallets and billets of wood, 
and in a greater variety of food. Among the higher classes there 
was larger expenditure in all forms of comfortable, refined, and 
even luxurious living. With the breaking down of old mediaeval 
ways and a greater familiarity with other countries the people 
took a new and stronger enjoyment in all the pleasures of life. 

332 . Dress and Eating. — Dress was much more showy, expen- 
sive, and fanciful than of old. Even the merchant and the mer- 
chant's wife wore silk, embroidery, cloth of gold and silver, and 
jewels in rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and sewed on their 
clothes. Among the nobility and at court this half- barbarous excess 
of personal ornament was carried to great lengths and brought the 
English into some ridicule in the eyes of the other nations of 
Europe. The Elizabethan ruff which is so conspicuous in the 
portraits of the time, on both men and women, is a good instance 

RE 



370 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of the showy and excessive fashions. Bombasted trousers for men 
and skirts spread widely by farthingales for women were charac- 
teristic of the time. Queen Elizabeth herself set an extravagant 
example in dress and personal expenditures, for notwithstanding 
her miserliness in many directions she was never sparing of 
money for her own adornment. 

The Puritan writers of the time were never weary of condemn- 
ing these fashionable excesses, and many of the courtiers impov- 
erished themselves and sacrificed their estates in their efforts to 
equal in dress and show those who were more fortunate in obtain- 
ing lucrative offices or royal favors. Men of good family and 
position begged for the most petty and almost menial offices con- 
nected with the court for the sake of the salaries connected with 
them, small as these often were. Long waiting sometimes brought 
grants of offices or estates ; more often it brought neither. The 
poet Spenser describes the doubts and sorrows of the courtier as 
he may well himself have experienced them. 

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride, 
What hell it is in suing long to bide : 
To lose good days, that might be better spent; 
To waste long nights in pensive discontent; 
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; 
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; 
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires ; 
To fawne, to crouche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, 
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne. 

In eating and drinking also there was much luxury among the 
wealthier classes. Wines of many kinds were imported and came 
to be used more largely than beer, which was the national beverage. 
Neither coffee nor tea was yet known in England, but tobacco was 
introduced by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1586 and immediately became 
popular among fashionable people. More refined manners in 
eating became customary among persons of all classes. Knives 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 371 

and plates were used more universally, though the proverbial state- 
ment that "fingers were made before forks" still remained true, 
the use of those implements apparently having come in only 
some years after Elizabeth's death. 

333. Building. — The most conspicuous change in the method 
of living of the upper classes, however, was not in dress nor in 
food, but in the character of the houses. The protection against 
violence, which had now been given by the government ever since 




?\"> : :T ^'"' , 







Lacock Abbey (a country house constructed from an old monastery) 

the time of Henry VII, made it possible for the gentry and 
nobility to build their dwellings for enjoyment rather than for 
defense. Moat, wall, and lancet window now gave place to open 
garden walks, to broad entrances, and windows through Which 
floods of sunshine might light up the house. Many of the nobles 
and gentry had been enriched by the lands and buildings taken 
from the monasteries ; others held offices which brought them large 
incomes j still others held shares in the trade that was growing up, 
or profited by it indirectly through the increasing value of their 



372 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

property. There was also an enlightened interest in architecture 
and adornment of houses. Under these circumstances there arose 
over England a great number of large, beautiful, and tasteful dwell- 
ings, many of which still remain but slightly changed from the con- 
dition in which they were completed during Queen Elizabeth's 
reign. Windows in these were as numerous as they had been 
scarce in the dark mediaeval castle, their walls were hung with 
imported tapestries and paintings, and they were surrounded by 
artistically laid out gardens and carefully preserved woods and 
parks. These lordly halls and manor houses were copied in the 
form of more modest country houses of every size and grade of 
luxury and comfort down to the mere farmhouses of the substan- 
tial farmer or sheep raiser. In no material respect was there a 
greater break with the past than in the dwellings of England. 

334. Royal Progresses. — Into all this luxury of living Queen 
Elizabeth entered heartily, both in her own palaces and during her 
" progresses." These " progresses " were series of visits which 
she made from time to time from one country house to another, 
or from one town to another, spending sometimes some months in 
this way. The relief from the living expenses of herself and her 
court when she was thus enjoying the hospitality of her wealthy 
subjects appealed to her thrifty instincts ; she took sincere pleasure 
in the festivities that accompanied her visits, and they served a 
useful purpose in rousing the devotion of the people to herself and 
giving opportunities for the familiarity and courtesy with which 
she so well knew how to please those whom she wished to please. 
In many a house in England the room is still shown where "Good 
Queen Bess" slept. When the queen visited a nobleman's or 
gentleman's castle or manor house there were hunting parties, 
feasting, music, and revels. When she paid a ceremonious visit to 
some wealthy town there was again feasting, an address from the 
mayor, a reply from the queen, pageants representing the history 
of the city or her majesty's victories, processions, and mimic bat- 
ties. If her visit were to one of the universities the 'masters and 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



373 



fellows of the college greeted her with Latin addresses and poems 
and the students with Latin plays and allegorical shows, the queen 
replying and commenting, praising or blaming, in the same clas- 
sical language in which she was addressed, her Latin and even her 
Greek being usually ready to be summoned in the amount neces- 
sary for the occasion. 

335. The Love for Shows. —Of all such festivities in manor 
house, town-hall, college, among the law students, or in the open 




The Long Gallery of Haddon Hall, built in the Time of Queen Elizabeth 

air, dramatic shows made a large part. Pageants were shown, and 
masques, interludes, and plays were written to be played before 
the queen by poets and playwrights of every grade of skill, from 
the crudest to some of the most perfect in literary form and poetic 
gift. One of the great marks of the age of Elizabeth was its love 
of mimicry, pageantry, and dramatic representation in all its forms. 
The news of any event of national interest, the visit of any foreign 
prince or ambassador, the anniversary of the queen's birth or 



374 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

coronation, Christmas, Easter, or Midsummer Day was taken 
advantage of to hold revels, to arrange tableaux, or to prepare 
a show or an allegorical play. At the same time plays in which 
the words were of far more importance than their accompani- 
ments were being written and represented. Before the reign 
of Elizabeth closed, the drama had reached a perfection and a 
fertility of production unexampled before or since in English 
history. 

336. Elizabethan Literature. — This dramatic production was, 
however, only one part of the whole intellectual and literary life 
of the time. The new learning of the time of Henry VIII had 
deepened and widened during the time of Elizabeth until it had 
become a whole new literature. The poetic and prose writing 
in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign was not only much larger 
in amount and finer in quality than what had preceded it, but it 
was different in character. It was all quite personal. Men 
expressed their own feelings, thoughts, and experiences in their 
own way. They were no longer bound by conventional expres- 
sions and ideas. Each man wrote what was in him ; he did not 
merely describe general moods and experiences. The subjective 
or personal nature of the literature of this time is well described 
in the last line of one of Sidney's sonnets. 

" Fool," said my muse to me, " look in thy heart and write." 

It was a time when there was much study of the classical 
authors. Elizabeth herself and many of the nobility, gentry, and 
even merchants were familiar with the best Greek and Latin 
authors. Writers and readers alike were more or less imbued 
with this classical learning. But the principal influence which 
gave form to the literature of the time was the example of Italy. 
Petrarch and other Italian writers were known and studied, and 
many Englishmen themselves spent much time in Italy. This was 
true of Wyatt and Surrey, the earliest poets of this new literary 
period, who indeed had both died before Elizabeth's accession. 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 375 

337. Sidney and Spenser. — Sir Philip Sidney, one of the most 
influential writers of the time, was also a man of classical training, 
a traveler in Italy, and familiar with its literature. Sidney was the 
son of one of Elizabeth's most trusted ministers and courtiers, and 
his mother, wife, and friends were all of the influential nobility 
that gathered about Elizabeth's court. He volunteered to help the 
Netherlanders in their rebellion against the Spanish king, and died 
of wounds received in battle there in 1586, when he was scarcely 
more than thirty years of age. He was a man of pure, frank, and 
generous nature, and his amiable character, his romantic life, and 
the generous help he gave to literary men combined with his own 
writings in prose and verse to make him one of the best known 
and best loved men of the sixteenth century. 

Edmund Spenser has been looked up to as a model since the 
publication in 1579 of The Shepherd's Calendar, his first poem. 
He was of good but not noble family, was educated at Cambridge, 
and afterwards introduced to the literary and political society of 
such men as Sidney at London. He was sent to Ireland as sec- 
retary of the lord lieutenant of that country, and obtained a grant 
of land there which kept him between England and Ireland till 
his death in 1599. From time to time as his poems were issued, 
.their grace, their beauty of form, and strength of thought placed 
him among the very first of English poets. Far the best known of 
his poems is the long poetic allegory, The Faerie Queene. This was 
published between 1590 and 1596. Besides its beauty of thought, 
fanciful ingenuity of plan, and delicate poetic charm, it was written 
in a new and specially musical form of verse, which has always since 
been known as the " Spenserian stanza." Yet running through the 
fancies of his poetry was a deep interest in the philosophical and 
political interests of his time, and he was more than half a Puritan. 
338. Prose Writing. — The variety of Elizabethan literature is 
quite marvelous. It was almost equally great in prose and verse. 
Hooker wrote a philosophical or theological work reflecting the 
same moderate religious views as were established by Elizabeth's 



376 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

compromise in the church, and expressing his thoughts with a grace- 
fulness and dignity which have given his Ecclesiastical Polity a per- 
manent place in literature. Camden, an historian who wrote the 
annals of his time in both Latin and English, was the best of a 
number of such learned antiquarian writers. Some chronicles were 
still more popular, like those of Holinshed, which recounted the 
history of England, or like Hakluyt's Voyages, which described the 
voyages and discoveries of English seamen. There was an enor- 
mous production of pamphlets on all subjects. Pamphlets took 
the place which newspapers take with us, and all the disputes and 
discussions of the time were represented in the pamphlet literature. 
Puritans and churchmen, those who took different sides on ques- 
tions of politics or of literature, those who had personal contro- 
versies, — all set them forth in pamphlets. Many also were written 
on subjects not controversial, simply to furnish amusement to their 
readers and some profit to their writers. 

Francis Bacon, most of whose life and writing was to fall in 
the next reign, was already a well-known writer and courtier under 
Queen Elizabeth. His witty and wise Essays were published in 
1597. Sir Walter Raleigh has been mentioned among the explorers 
of the time, and might as properly have been described as states- 
man, soldier, or writer, for he was equally gifted and active in all 
these directions. His writing included a History of the World 
and several descriptions of geographical discovery in prose and 
several fine songs and short pieces in poetry. Years after, there 
was found in his Bible a poem, written the night before his exe- 
cution, of which these were the last lines : 

Even such is time, that takes in trust, 
Our youth, our joys, our all we have, 
And pays us back with age and dust, 
Who in the dark and silent grave, 
When we have wandered all our ways, 
Shuts up the story of our days; 
But from this earth, this grave, this dust, 
My Cod shall raise me up, I trust. 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



3/7 



Among prose writers as well as writers of song and drama, Ben 
Jonson represented learned, classical, and polished production, 
and exercised a strong influence over all the other writers of his 
time. 

339. Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Drama. — But Shakes- 
peare was the real crown of the age, and through him we are 



as the most 
of that period, 
in the English 
the queen at 
" progresses," 
players and by 



brought back to the Elizabethan drama 
characteristic form of the great literature 
Plays on a great variety of subjects, both 
and Latin languages, were given before 
her own court and while she was on her 
both by regularly organized companies of 
amateur bodies of 
boys, lawyers, gen- 
tlemen, or citizens. 
In the latter part 
of her reign three 
theaters were built 
in London, to play 
at which stock 
companies were 
formed. They also 
gave plays through- 
out the country 
when the plague or 
other causes had 
driven polite 
society away from 
the capital. During Elizabeth's reign and the succeeding forty 
years not less than two thousand plays were produced, many of 
them written by men of education, of some position in society, 
and familiar with the old dramas of the Greeks and Romans. 
On the other hand, many were written by men connected with 
the dramatic companies as players or as regular writers. 




Burleigh House 



378 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Of the latter class Shakespeare was the great type and the great 
master. Born in 1564 at Stratford-on-Avon, he came to London 
in 1585, three years before the defeat of the Armada, and con- 
nected himself with one of the theaters there. His plays appeared 
from time to time during the last ten years of Elizabeth's reign 
and the first few years of that of her successor. He represented 
the very best intellectual gifts characteristic of his time, as well as 
an unapproached genius all his own. His preeminence among the 
poets of his own time and of all time was recognized then as it 
has been recognized ever since. 

The subjects chosen by writers of plays varied widely. Many 
were taken from romantic stories which had come from France 
or Italy ; many, on the other hand, were taken from the history 
of England itself and of its national heroes. These " chronicle 
plays" reflected the interest which the English people felt in 
their own past and their pride in their own nationality. Not 
infrequently plays were written and performed which expressed 
the contemporary popular feeling of opposition to the Spaniards 
or the French as the case might be. The foreign adventure and 
enterprise, the defiance of the pope and of the Catholic powers, 
and the universal admiration for the queen were all represented 
on the popular stage. Nowhere in the whole action, legislation, 
or writing of the time does the national patriotism appear more 
clearly than in such speeches as that description of England 
which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of old John of Gaunt, in 
the play of Richard II. 

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
This other Eden, demi-paradise, 
This fortress built by Nature for herself 
Against infection and the hand of war, 
This happy breed of men, this little world, 
This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 379 

Against the envy of less happier lands, 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 

Or where, in King John, Faulconbridge cries, 

This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. 

The Elizabethan literature survived and continued in most 
of its characteristics long after the time of the great queen. 
Shakespeare's best work was done in the years immediately after 
her death. At least as late as 1640 the influence of Jonson, 
Shakespeare, and Spenser gave form and character to the drama 
and other poetry, and their charm and manner still rested strongly 
upon Milton in the second half of the seventeenth century. 

340. The Close of the Reign. — The last few years of Elizabeth's 
life were to her bitter ones, while England as a whole was great 
and prosperous. The old ministers and early attendants on the 
queen died one by one or withdrew from court. On the other 
hand, at no time was the court more brilliant. Great men of a some- 
what younger generation, like Raleigh, Robert Cecil, and Bacon, 
were there. Elizabeth still loved flattery and played the coquette. 
She was especially fond of having handsome young men always 
about her. The principal favorite of the queen in these late days 
was Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, to whom she intrusted tasks 
far beyond his abilities. In 1599 he was placed in charge of the 
troops in Ireland, where another great rebellion of the native 
chiefs had broken out. Essex mismanaged the campaign, and 
then, presuming on the favor of the queen, disobeyed orders and. 
came back to England without leave. 

Elizabeth seldom allowed her personal feelings to interfere with 
her public duty, so Essex was deprived of his military command, 
of all his offices and grants, and was banished from court. In anger 
he made a foolish attempt to raise a rebellion in London, where he 
was popular. Although he declared he was acting only against the 
queen's ministers, not against the queen herself, he was arrested, 



3 8o 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



tried, and convicted of high treason. It was a great blow to the 
queen to be compelled by, her duty to the state to disregard her 
fondness for Essex and to sign his death warrant. 

Feeling herself unblessed by personal affection, separated by 
age and suspicion from those immediately around her, the great 
queen became gloomy, weak, and depressed. Finally in March, 
1603, she died, in the seventieth year of her age and in the forty- 
sixth of her reign. 

341. Summary of the Period of Elizabeth. — \\ ith all the weak- 
nesses and contradictions of her character, Queen Elizabeth had 
piloted the ship of England's fortunes through rocks and shoals 
into comparatively open water. At the beginning of her reign 

the country was in 
• imminent danger of 
foreign invasion 
and of civil war, 
divided and unsettled 
in religious system, 
and dependent on 
other countries in 
foreign policy. By 
the end of her reign 
there was no longer 
danger of invasion from abroad or of rebellion at home. England 
had become distinct in religious organization and held a proud and 
independent position among the nations of Europe. Her com- 
merce was stretching to all parts of the earth, the foundations of 
colonial dominion were being laid, the material resources of the 
people were growing, and a noble body of literature was in proc- 
ess of formation. During all this progress Elizabeth had been the 
leader and representative of the nation. Much of the material 
greatness she had nothing to do with; much of the success of 
the government was in spite of her actions rather than a result 
of them. Nevertheless her own part in the policy of the government 




Effigy of Queen Elizabeth upon her Tomb 
in Westminster Abbey 



THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 381 

had been justified by its success. Even her vacillation and pro- 
crastination had in some cases proved to be the best policy, for 
they had given time for affairs to settle themselves. At any rate 
through the whole tangled web of the history of almost a half century 
ran the thread of Elizabeth's strong personality, and the age will 
always be known by her name. The great dramatist, when he 
could look back on her reign as a whole, described it, in the play 
of Henry VIII, in the form of a prophecy put into the mouth 
of Archbishop Cranmer speaking at her christening. 

She shall be loved, and fear'd ; her own shall bless her: 

Her foes shake like a field of beaten com, 

And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her: 

In her days every man shall eat in safety, 

Under his own vine, what he plants ; and sing 

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours; 

God shall be truly known ; and those about her 

From her shall read the perfect ways of honour, 

And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. 

And still later, Lord Brooke, a lifelong courtier of Elizabeth, still 
spoke of her as "my incomparable queen." 

General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, vii, sects. 3-8. Froude, 
History of England, Vols. VII-XII. This portion of Froude's great work is 
more moderate and trustworthy than the earlier portion. Creighton, The 
Age of Elizabeth (Epochs of History), and Beesley, Elizabeth (Twelve 
English Statesmen), can be well combined to give the personal and the 
general history of the reign. Creighton, Queen Elizabeth, is a hand- 
somely illustrated work, which is also published without the illustrations 
and at a lower price. Several of the great questions of the time are admirably 
explained in the Preface to Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitu- 
tional Documents. Five w r orks by Martin A. S. Hume are of much interest, 
The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth, The Year after the Armada, Philip II 
of Spain, The Great Lord Burghley, and Treason and Plot. For Scotland 
at this time the best books are Hume Brown, History of Scotland, Vol. II, 
and Lang, Mystery of Mary Stuart. For the literature of the time the best 
short works are Saintsbury, Elizabethan Literature, and Schelling, The 
English Chronicle Play. The relations with the Netherlands are explained 
in Miss Putnam, William the Silent (Heroes of the Nations). 



382 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Contemporary Sources. — The most important constitutional documents 
are given in Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents. 
Harrison, Elizabethan England (Camelot series), is a general description 
of the country at that time. The contemporary records concerning Mary 
Queen of Scots are collected in Rait, Mary Queen of Scots, ij^3-ij'8f 
(Scottish History by Contemporary Writers). Interesting personal descrip- 
tions of Elizabeth are in extracts from the Memoirs of Melville in Kendall, 
Source-Book, No. 53. No. 56 in the same is a series of letters about the 
Armada. Speeches of Elizabeth before parliament and the army are given 
in the same, No. 54, in Lee, Source-Book, No. 141, in Colby, Selections 
from the Sources, No. 61, and in G ALTON, English Prose (Camelot series), 
pp. 26-29. Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, is the great collection of nar- 
ratives of explorers and adventurers. A selection from these is given in 
more accessible form in Payne, Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen, and a series 
of extracts in Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 144-147. Some thirty illustrative 
documents for the period of Queen Elizabeth are in Cheyney, Readings. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Macaulay, The Armada. Schiller, Maria 
Stuart. Tennyson, The Revenge : a Ballad of the Fleet. Many of the 
dramas of the time, as Jonson, The Alchemist, Every Man in his Humor, 
and Eastward Ho, throw light on the customs of the time. Scott, Kenil- 
worth. Kingsley, Westward Ho. Miss Yonge, Unknown to History. 
Fletcher, In the Days of Drake. Benson, Come Rack, Come Rope. 
Alfred Noyes, Tales of the Mermaid Tavern. 

Special Topics. — (1) Death of Mary Queen of Scots, Kendall, Source- 
Book, No. 58 ; (2) The Defeat of the Armada, Froude, History of England, 
Vol. XII, chap, xxxvi ; (3) The Voyage of Drake around the World, 
Payne, Narrative of Francis Pretty, Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen, Vol. I, 
pp. 196-230; (4) Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland in 1853, ibid., Vol. II, 
pp. 1-50 ; (5) Ireland in the Time of the Tudors, Traill, Social England, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 293-302, 409-411 ; (6) Witchcraft and Alchemy, ibid., pp. 325- 
331 ; (7) Dress and Manners, ibid., pp. 383-390 ; (8) Religious Parties, ibid., 
pp. 424-431; (9) Exploration and Travel, ibid., pp. 477-494; (10) Classes 
of Society in England, Harrison, Elizabethan England, chap, i (Camelot 
series); (11) Changes in Houses in Elizabeth's Time, ibid,, chap. ix. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE EARLY STUARTS 
1603-1640 

342 . James I. — Elizabeth had refused to acknowledge any 
one as her successor, even after it became evident that she would 
have no children of her own. If the will of Henry VIII, under 
which she, as well as Edward and Mary, had inherited the throne, 
was to be followed, a certain English nobleman, son of the sister 
of Lady Jane Grey and great-grandson of Mary, the younger 
sister of Henry VIII, would become king. But James Stuart, 
son of Mary Queen of Scots and great-grandson of Margaret, the 
elder sister of Henry VIII, was a far more suitable candidate. 1 He 
had now been king of Scotland for many years, was equally near 
to Elizabeth in blood, and seemed to be indicated for the throne 
both by his position and by the preference of the queen, which 
she at last expressed a few days before her death. He was accord- 
ingly proclaimed king by general agreement immediately after 
Elizabeth's death. His title had been until this time James VI 
of Scotland ; he became now, in addition, James I of England. 



1 The line of descent was as follows : 



Margaret 

I 
James V 



Henry VII, 1485-1509 



Henry VIII, 1509-1547 



of Scotland Mary 

M I 1553-1558 

Mary 

Queen of Scots 

James VI 
of Scotland 



Elizabeth 
1558-1603 



383 



Edward 
1547-1553 



I 

Mary 

Frances 
Grey 

Catherine 
Grey 

Lord 
Beauchamp 



384 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

A new line was thus established on the throne of England, — the 
House of Stuart. 1 

It was a line of kings with well-marked characteristics and fill- 
ing a very distinct period. They continued the system of strong 
government of the Tudors and carried it to still greater complete- 
ness. In England, as in the other countries of Europe, it was a 
period of growing despotism, when the kings were determined to 
have their own way, whatever their subjects might think of it. 
The Stuart dynasty as a whole, therefore, has left the reputation 
of being the most autocratic and tyrannical in English history. 

343. Character of the New King. — James was well educated, 
widely read, and in matters that did not concern his own personal 
interests and feelings broad-minded and good-natured. He dis- 
liked the extreme views of the Puritans, and he had already 
learned in Scotland that their principles would carry the control 
of church affairs out of his hands entirely. All his sympathies 
and preferences, therefore, were for the established church as 
he found it when he came to England. He was even liberally 
inclined towards the Roman Catholics. On political questions, no 
king that ever reigned in England had higher views of his powers, 
authority, and responsibilities than James. He felt that he had 
been set by God to the work of ruling the country, and that this 

1 The members of this family were the following. 
James I, 1603, 1625 



Prince Henry 
died 1612 


Charles I, 1625-1649 

■ 1 


Elizabeth 

married the elector 

of the Palatinate 

in Germany 


Charles II, 1660-1685 




James II, 1685-168S 




1 




1 
James 


1 

Mary 

1 688- 1 694 

married William III 

1688-1702 


Anne 
1702-1714 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 385 



was his business, just as it was the business of a clergyman to give 
religious teaching, of a lawyer or teacher to fulfill his professional 
duties, or of a farmer or merchant to carry on his occupation. 
The physical personality of King James was scarcely fitted to his 
high conceptions of royalty. He was not naturally dignified or 
impressive, as Henry VIII and Elizabeth had been. He had a 
strong Scotch accent, his enunciation was indistinct, and his gait 
was somewhat shambling. These physical deficiencies were, how- 
ever, of small importance compared with his mental characteristics. 
He had none of that instinctive 
capacity to know and conform 
to what the great mass of his 
subjects wanted which had 
been the most valuable trait 
of the Tudor sovereigns. He 
was so sure he was right that 
he never tried to understand 
what others meant. He was 
so vain that he could not recog- 
nize or appreciate great ability 
in others, and therefore 
selected his ministers un- 
wisely. To the difficult work 
of solving the pressing political 
and religious problems that 
are now to be described, James's abilities were poorly adapted. 
344. The Established Church. — The greatest question of the 
sixteenth century had been as to whether England should be 
Roman Catholic or not. That had now been settled ; and as a 
nation she had separated herself forever from the Roman Catholic 
church. But whether England was to be Anglican x or Puritan was 
still an unsettled question. 

1 The established church from the time of Elizabeth onward can be 
fairly known as "Anglican," and its government and belief as "Anglicanism." 




James I 



386 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The religious system which had been decided upon by Elizabeth 
and her ministers and enforced through the whole of her long 
reign was a moderate, enlightened, and orderly organization of 
religious worship, and a great part of the people had not only 
accepted but grown to love its arrangements. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of men found in the forms of this official organization of the 
church room for earnest piety and religious devotion. Although 
it had been imposed upon the people, not chosen by them, a 
very large number of Englishmen, perhaps a majority of them, 
were quite satisfied with it. 

345. Puritanism. — Nevertheless the Puritans had been grow- 
ing steadily in numbers. Many of those who held their religious 
views most strongly were, at the beginning of the reign of James I, 
entirely dissatisfied with the condition of the established church. 
They wished simplification of its ceremonies, abolition of its organ- 
ization under archbishops and bishops, greater strictness of its 
moral rules, and a change of some of its religious beliefs. The 
great religious struggle of the seventeenth century was between 
these two parties. On the one side was Anglicanism, supported 
by the king and by all the organized powers of church and state, 
and giving satisfaction to a great many people, especially to the 
higher classes. On the other side was a great mass of the most 
deeply religious men of the time, particularly to be found in the 
ranks of the ordinary clergymen of the parishes and among 
the middle classes of the people. The contest between Puri- 
tanism and Anglicanism took the place in the seventeenth cen- 
tury of the contest between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism 
in the sixteenth. 

346. The Royalist Ideal of Government. — Along with this reli- 
gious conflict a great political conflict was arising, — a conflict 
between the unrestricted power of the king on the one hand and 
the equal or even superior powers of the people represented by 
parliament on the other. The form of government which had 
grown up in the last century and a half had been one in which the 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 387 

ruler exercised very great powers. The various ministers and offi- 
cials were the submissive and obedient instruments of the king or 
queen. Parliament was generally quite willing to allow the sov- 
ereign to exercise his or her own judgment in most of the points 
of government. In foreign affairs, in keeping order in the country, 
in regulating matters of the church, and in carrying on all the usual 
duties of executive government, the king, directly or through his 
council and through the various grades of officials, exercised an 
almost unrestricted power and authority. This had come to be 
the accepted official view of the organization and powers of gov- 
ernment. Such powers had always been used in greater or less 
degree by the kings, but the rulers of the Tudor line during the 
sixteenth century had exercised them in an especially high degree. 
They were limited in their action only by the old established laws 
of the country, by the restrictions of the Great Charter, and by 
such new laws as parliament might induce them to accept. 

347. The Resistance of Parliament. — On the other hand, there 
had long been signs of growing opposition to this plan of govern- 
ment. Over and over again during the reign of Elizabeth parlia- 
ment had tried to force its views upon her. It had petitioned 
her to marry and in the meantime to name her successor ; it had 
pressed her to sign the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots; 
it had tried to introduce reforms of a Puritan nature into the 
church ; and just at the close of the reign a long debate was held 
in which the grant of patents or monopolies by the queen was 
severely criticised. Besides this, parliament had shown an increas- 
ing sense of its own importance by claiming the right to freedom 
of debate, freedom of its members from arrest, and to judge of 
the election of its own members. Queen Elizabeth, notwithstand- 
ing this growing self-assertion of parliament, had been able by a 
mixture of authority and conciliation to retain her entire control 
over the government. Her popularity, her age, her sex, the 
dangers of the time, had all combined to prevent any conflict 
between her and parliament. Now, however, all these restraints 



388 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

were removed and two different ideals of government proved to be 
in antagonism to each other just as clearly as were the two dif- 
ferent ideals of the church. The great struggle of the seventeenth 
century was therefore political as well as religious. 

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries parliament had exer- 
cised much more control over the actions of government than 
during Tudor times. It was quite possible for its members and 
the voters who elected them to feel and claim that its old acknowl- 
edged powers were really greater than those which had been 
recently conceded to it. Lawyers who were familiar with the 
constitutional history of their country, Puritans who were dissatis- 
fied with the established church, lovers of good government who 
saw the administration being carried on unwisely and unsuccess- 
fully, might readily make up a parliamentary party who would 
insist on having more to do with government than Henry VIII 
or Elizabeth had allowed, and they could refer back to ancient 
precedent for their claims. This was more likely to happen 
because times were changing and for some reason men's ambi- 
tions ran more in political lines than they had done for the last 
century. Parliament, which under the Tudors had been submis- 
sive or easily browbeaten, under the Stuarts was aggressive, fault- 
finding, and obstinate. 

The views of parliament held by James did not allow to it 
much power. He thought parliament ought to give him infor- 
mation and advice and provide him with funds to carry on the 
government, but that it ought not to interfere with the way in which 
he carried it on. He was not responsible, in his opinion, either to 
parliament or to the people ; he was responsible to God alone. 
This view of government came afterwards to be described as the 
belief in the "divine right of kings," and, although that term was 
not yet used, the doctrine was believed in by a great many writers, 
clergymen, and statesmen, as well as the king. Under these con- 
ditions it is no wonder that the reign of James came soon to be 
marked by much dispute on both religious and political matters. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 389 

348. The Hampton Court Conference. — The Puritans hoped 
that a king who had ruled over a country where religion was so 
strongly Protestant as in Scotland would be willing to introduce 
some further reforms in the church of England. A great petition 
for changes in the church was therefore prepared and presented 
to him. It was planned that it should be signed by a thou- 
sand clergymen and was therefore spoken of as the " Millenary 
Petition." Instead of either granting or refusing its requests, 
James arranged a debate between some of the leading bishops 
and others who did not wish any change to be introduced in 
the established church, and some prominent clergymen of Puritan 
tendencies. This conference was held before the king himself 
at his palace of Hampton Court. During parts of several days 
the discussions on the points in dispute proceeded between the 
two parties, the king occasionally participating. 

At last, when one of the Puritan clergymen proposed that certain 
disputed points should be referred in each case to the bishop and 
his " presbyters," or parish clergymen or elders, the king, who had 
had many conflicts in Scotland with the presbyteries or associa- 
tions of ministers, fired up and declared to the Puritan leaders 
that they were aiming " at a Scotch presbytery, which agreeth as 
well with a monarchy as God and the Devil. Then Jack and 
Tom and Will and Dick shall meet and at their pleasure censure 
me and my Council and all our proceedings. . . . Stay, I pray you, 
for one seven years before you demand that from me, and if then 
you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipes stuffed, I will per- 
haps hearken to you ; for let that government be once up, I am 
sure I shall be kept in breath ; then shall we all of us have work 
enough and both our hands full. But, Dr. Reynolds, until you find 
that I grow lazy, let that alone." He then left the room, declaring, 
"If this be all that they have to say, I shall make them conform 
themselves, or I will harry them out of the land, or else the worse." 

One of the members of the king's council who was present 
exclaimed, " His Majesty spoke by inspiration of the Spirit of 



390 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

God," and others expressed their approval of his opposition to the 
Puritans. In fact, neither James nor his principal advisers had 
much sympathy with or understanding of the desires of the Puri- 
tan clergymen and of those who agreed with them. They thought 
that these were making much of trifles and acting from the mere 
love of contention. During the whole of James's reign he was 
trying, as he said, to "make them conform themselves," and 
since a very large proportion of the people were Puritans he was 
in constant conflict with this class of his subjects. The first 
serious contest came early. In 1604 a new set of canons, or 
church laws and rules, was drawn up by convocation. 1 These 
canons required that every Englishman should acknowledge the 
prayer book as being in accordance in every respect with the 
word of God. An oath to this effect was ordered to be taken 
by every clergyman, and those who refused were to be expelled 
from their positions. Some three hundred who refused to comply 
were thus deprived of their benefices. In many other ways the 
king was thus at cross-purposes with the Puritan part of his 
subjects. 

349 . The New Version of the Scriptures. — One recommenda- 
tion of the Puritan clergy made at the Hampton Court Confer- 
ence commended itself to James and was carried out within the 
next few years. This was a new translation of the Bible. In the 
course of that discussion several of the speakers pointed out that 
the familiar translation did not truly represent the original. James 
was himself a man of learning and fully appreciated this fact. 
There were many clergymen learned in Greek and Hebrew in 
England, and James asked the archbishop of Canterbury to obtain 
advice from the universities and draw up a list of men competent 
to make a new translation. Fifty-four were selected and divided 
into six groups, one portion of the Bible being given to each 
group to be translated. After three years of labor the results 

1 Convocation was the assembly of the higher clergy and of representa- 
tives of the lower clergy in each archbishopric. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 391 

were carefully gone over and considered by all together and the 
new translation thus agreed upon was published in 161 1. 

The translators applied not only learning but skill and judg- 
ment to their task. They changed the earlier translations no 
more than necessary, and frequently followed the order and form 
of the original language. Nevertheless they had a complete 
mastery of the English language and used it in their translation 
with a simplicity, dignity, and harmony which have never been 
excelled. Use and time have made the forms of expression used 
in this translation of the Bible familiar, and they have never ceased 
to exercise a deep influence on English thought, writing, and 
speech. The large proportion of words of Anglo-Saxon origin 
used by the translators is noticeable. The first thirty-five words 
of the Lord's Prayer are all old English words, and on the average, 
through the whole Bible, ninety out of every hundred words are 
Anglo-Saxon ; while Shakespeare uses only eighty-five Anglo-Saxon 
words out of every hundred, and the historian Gibbon only seventy 
out of every hundred. 

James took a great interest in this work and was quite willing 
to allow the learned Puritan clergy to help in it, even though he 
did not propose to let them make any changes in the established 
church. 

350. The Gunpowder Plot. —The Roman Catholics, like the 
Puritans, at first hoped that James would give them greater liber- 
ties than Elizabeth had done. His mother had been a Roman 
Catholic, his wife was secretly a member of the same church, and 
he was known himself not to favor their continued persecution. 
They might very fairly anticipate an improvement in their posi- 
tion. As a matter of fact the king did show great leniency in 
the enforcement of the laws against Roman Catholics. Never- 
theless, as the feeling among the people was very bitter against 
them, soon after his accession James permitted the passage of 
more severe recusancy laws, and when it suited his policy he 
allowed these laws to be put in force against them. All Roman 



392 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Catholic priests were banished from the country and laymen who 
would not come to the services of the established church con- 
tinued to be heavily fined. 

As they still continued to suffer under the persecutions, some 
of the more violent of them, in 1604, formed an atrocious plot 
according to which the king, ministers, and members of parlia- 
ment were all to be killed at one time and a Roman Catholic 
government set up. For this purpose the plotters hired a cellar 
under the parliament house and stored in this a number of barrels 
of gunpowder. It was planned to apply a match to this on the day 
of the opening of parliament and thus cause an explosion which 
would destroy all those connected with the existing government 
and give an opportunity for the Roman Catholics to seize power. 

One of the thirteen conspirators, a gentleman named Guy 
Fawkes, was appointed to watch over the powder. Parliament 
was to meet on the 5 th of November. A few days before this 
date one of the Roman Catholic peers received a mysterious better 
warning him not to attend parliament. It had been sent secretly 
by one of the conspirators, who could not bear to see a relative 
and fellow Catholic run the risk of being killed in the explosion. 
This nobleman took the letter of warning to the earl of Salisbury, 
James's principal minister, who showed it to the king. They were 
led by some of its expressions to suspect the plan of blowing up 
the parliament house. They searched the cellars, found the barrels 
of powder, and captured Guy Fawkes. The whole plot therefore 
failed, its leaders were captured, and they and several others who 
were believed to have known of it were executed, or killed in 
encounters with the sheriff who was sent to capture them. 1 The 
immediate consequence was the passing of more severe laws 
against the Roman Catholics. The 5 th of November has al- 
ways since been commemorated in England as " Guy Fawkes 

1 Doubt of the reality of this plot is expressed in a book by Gerard, 
What was the Gunpowder Plot ? To this, however, a convincing reply is 
given in Gardiner's work, What Gunpowder Plot was. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 393 



Day," one of the most usual incidents of its celebration being the 
hanging of Guy Fawkes in effigy. 

351. The Proposed Union of the Two Kingdoms. — James was 
unsuccessful in a project in which he was much interested for 
breaking down the separation of Scotland from England. The 
English and the Scots had been hereditary enemies. Not only in 
constant border hostilities, but in frequent wars they had been 
pitted against each other from time immemorial. Now England 
and Scotland had the same king, and there seemed no reason for 
a continuance of such enmity. James was extremely anxious to 
draw the two countries nearer to each other. He wished to have 
the same system of law, the same church 
arrangements, the same property and trading 
privileges in the two countries. He tried 
to induce parliament to pass an act of union 
to bring about these ends. But parliament 
and the English people generally still felt all 
the old antagonism and were quite unwilling 
to go so far as the king proposed. Although 
commissioners were appointed from the 
Scotch parliament and from the English par- 
liament, who discussed the plan for some 

years, very little was accomplished. Such laws in each country 
as involved actual hostility to the other were repealed, and the 
judges decided that post nati, that is, children born in either king- 
dom after the king's accession to the throne of England, were to 
be considered subjects of both kingdoms. Apart from this the 
two countries still remained separate, with the king as the one 
bond of union. 

352. Foreign Affairs. — In foreign affairs James insisted on 
going his own way. Soon after his accession he brought the long 
war with Spain to a close by a treaty which involved a partial 
desertion of England's ally, the Netherlands, and which was 
unpopular with those leaders, like Raleigh, who still clung to the 




Coat of Arms of the 
Stuart Kings 



394 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

policy of Queen Elizabeth. New treaties were also made with 
France and with the Netherlands. New questions, however, were 
rising in Europe in which it was very difficult for England to avoid 
taking sides. Germany was still separated into a number of 
different states, some of which were Roman Catholic and some 
Protestant. In 1618 a war broke out between these, the former 
states being helped from the first by Spain, and the Protestant, 
somewhat later, by Denmark, Sweden, and France. This is known 
as the Thirty Years' War. In England there was a strong popular 
desire to take part in this war on the Protestant side. This seemed 
the more proper and natural as James's daughter was married to 
the Elector Palatine, the leader of the Protestants in Germany. 
Old traditions, national and religious sympathy, and family affec- 
tion seemed to combine to lead England to join in the war. 

James, however, was not willing to do so. In the first place he 
was, by personal feelings and by principle, opposed to war. Sec- 
ondly, he had so much confidence in his own influence and powers 
of persuasion that he thought he could induce the contending 
parties to accept his arbitration and bring the war to an end of 
themselves. Lastly, he was so much under the influence of the 
Spanish ambassador and so unwilling to get on bad terms with 
Spain that he could not bring his mind to oppose her Roman 
Catholic allies in Germany. Therefore the Protestants in Ger- 
many had to carry on their struggle without English help, except 
for a few volunteers, so that in this respect also the king's policy 
was unpopular and opposed to the wishes of the English people. 

353. The Spanish and French Marriage Negotiations. — The 
principal reason for the close relations between England and 
Spain at this time was that the king had set his heart on arrang- 
ing a marriage between his surviving son Charles, the prince of 
Wales, and Maria, the infanta or princess of Spain, daughter of 
Philip III. James's eldest son, Henry, a popular and promising 
young man, died in 161 2, and his brother Charles was created 
Prince of Wales in 1618, when he was eighteen years of age. As 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 395 

James's daughter was married to a Protestant prince, the king 
thought that if his son were married to a Roman Catholic his 
influence in the affairs of Europe would be greatly increased. 
One marriage alliance with a Protestant family in Germany, an- 
other with the Roman Catholic power of Spain, would give him, 
as he thought, a position that would enable him to act the part 
of an umpire in international affairs, and induce the nations of 
Europe to accept his guidance. A less ambitious but not less 
attractive advantage in the Spanish match would be that the 
bride would bring a dowry large enough to pay many of the debts 
which were always pressing on the king. 

There were many difficulties in the way of such a plan. The 
English and Spaniards had come during the war of Elizabeth's 
time to look upon each other as natural enemies; the Spanish 
government would not agree to the marriage unless the princess 
should be allowed to keep her own religion, and asked that the 
laws against Roman Catholics in England should be repealed or at 
least not enforced; and the princess herself was opposed to the 
match on religious grounds. But the obstinacy of the king after 
once entering on the plan led him to hold to it ; many of his 
courtiers had been bribed by the Spanish government to encour- 
age it ; and the skillful Spanish ambassadors obtained an influence 
over the king and prolonged the negotiations for their own purposes, 
even though they themselves neither expected nor wished to see 
the marriage take place. Thus the negotiations were kept up, with 
few breaks, for more than eight years. During that time James 
was in humiliating and unworthy subserviency to the influence of 
the Spanish ambassador, and was continually making promises and 
concessions which he had to keep secret even from some of his 
own most faithful counselors. Finally, in 1623, Charles obtained 
the king's consent to go himself with his most intimate friend, 
the marquis of Buckingham, to Spain, there to bring the arrange- 
ment to a close and fetch his Spanish bride home with him. 
When the two young men got to Spain they were surprised to 



396 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

find the difficulties increased rather than diminished. The Span- 
ish government insisted on still more rigorous conditions when 
they had the prince practically a hostage among them, and the 
young lady, who- had been brought up in the extreme seclusion 
customary in Spain and was very strict in her religion, made no 
response to Charles's wooing. 

Worse than the doubtful reception in Spain was the outcry 
that arose in England. The Spanish marriage itself was bad 
enough, but for the prince to put himself in the power of Spain, 
for James to have allowed him to do so, and for the policy of 
England to be dictated- from Madrid, was maddening to English 
statesmen and the English populace. Charles and Buckingham 
themselves felt the humiliation of their position. At last their 
patience was exhausted and they came home, Charles in doubt 
and vexation, Buckingham in great anger. Within a short time 
the whole project was given up, and the good relations between 
England and Spain came to an end. Negotiations were soon 
afterward entered into with France, and Charles was married in 
1624 to Henrietta Maria, sister of the French king. She also was 
a Roman Catholic and the marriage was not popular ; but there 
was not the hostility to France that there was to Spain, and by 
comparison it gave at that time some satisfaction to the English 
people. It proved at a later time to be of malign influence upon 
the happiness of the royal family and of England. Henrietta 
Maria was not likely either from her personal character or her 
bringing up to endear herself to the English people or to develop 
good qualities, and the family connection with France was likely 
to be a dangerous one for England. For the present, however, 
this marriage seemed to the king to seal peace with France, and 
to the populace to be far the less of two evils. 

354. The King's Favorites; Somerset. — James was of an affec- 
tionate, demonstrative nature, and was intensely attached to those 
who made up the intimate circle of his family and friends. He 
could never refuse anything for which they asked, and placed no 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 397 

restrictions on himself in giving most lavishly of time and affection 
as well as money and other favors to those for whom he had a 
personal affection. As the government in James's eyes was as 
much his personal affair as any part of his private life, he naturally 
gave government positions and influence to his favorites. There- 
fore, alongside of those ministers and holders of office who had 
risen to their positions by virtue of their ability, services, or other 
influence, there were others who were in power simply because 
the doting king had become fond of them. Buckingham was the 
second of two young men who, each in his time, were so favored 
by the king as to have more influence over the government than 
all the other ministers together. The first was Robert Carr, a 
handsome young Scotchman who had attracted James's attention 
early in his reign. James became attached to him, knighted him, 
gave him lands, offices, and titles, and finally created him earl of 
Somerset. He was all-powerful with the king. James talked over 
everything with him, telling him his most secret plans and thoughts. 
Every one who wished to obtain anything from the king had first 
to obtain the favor of Somerset, for no request which he trans- 
mitted to the king was ever refused ; nothing which he opposed 
was granted. The greatest noblemen, the most powerful ministers, 
the richest commercial companies, all had to make presents and 
pay homage to the king's favorite. This went on for some, years, 
till Somerset became involved, along with his wife, in the charge 
of killing a man by poison. He was declared guilty in 161 6 and, 
although the king would not allow the death penalty to be inflicted 
upon him, he was kept in prison for many years and disappeared 
from court forever. 

355. Buckingham. — In the meantime a new favorite, George 
Villiers, had taken his place. He in the same way attracted the 
king's attention by his good looks and manners, his high spirits 
and his wit. He was knighted in 16 16, and afterward ennobled, 
being raised finally to the highest rank of the peerage as duke of 
Buckingham. He exercised all the influence over the king that 



398 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Somerset had possessed, and more. He was granted lands and 
offices which brought him in a princely income, besides receiving 
a constant flow of presents or bribes from those who had suits 
to make to the king. He retained his influence through the 
remainder of James's life and had a similar influence over his 
successor Charles. The final influence in breaking off the Spanish 
match and deciding on the marriage with the French princess had 
been exercised by Buckingham. He was a man not without ability 
and high spirit, but he was poorly educated, without training in 
statesmanship, with all the self-confidence of ignorance, and, above 
all, spoiled by the possession of practically unlimited power. 

In fact, at that time royal favorites seem to have arisen naturally 
in other countries as well as in England. Authority was almost 
entirely concentrated in royal hands, and the king, especially if he 
was a weak man, felt isolated. He needed some one in whom he 
could confide as an intimate friend, and who would relieve him of 
some of the personal burdens of his position by acting as distributor 
of the royal favors and as confidant in all the royal plans. 

356. Bacon. — There were, however, men about the court of 
greater mold than the king's favorites. Many of the great writers, 
scholars, and statesmen of the reign of Elizabeth were still living, 
and this period produced great men of its own. Of the former 
none was greater than Sir Francis Bacon, or Lord Bacon, as he 
is usually called. He was more than forty years old when James 
became king and had already been an official and adviser of 
the government under Queen Elizabeth, although in no very 
high position. He was learned as a lawyer and as a student of 
natural science and of philosophy. He was witty, polished, and 
eloquent. He was repeatedly a member of parliament and took 
an active part in all its work. His best powers, however, were 
shown in political thought and in statesmanlike judgment. He 
had the clearest ideas of any man of his time as to what was wise 
policy in most of the matters of government. As James, however, 
did not feel personally attracted to him, he remained for a long 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 399 

time in an inferior legal position, and his abilities were largely 
wasted. Every once in a while, when some difficult question came 
up, Bacon wrote a report or published a pamphlet or treatise upon 
it, usually dedicated to the king. His wisdom and skill were 
unquestionable, and he approved of the possession of great powers 
by the king, because he thought that the king could thus bring 
about needed reforms and carry on a wise administration of gov- 
ernment. If James had been willing to trust Bacon and take 
him instead of his ignorant favorites for his principal adviser, he 
might have carried on an equally autocratic and a much more 
successful and useful government. 

357. The Fall of Bacon. — Slowly, by hard work, by flattering 
the king, and by paying court to Somerset and Buckingham, Bacon 
was after middle life gradually promoted through successive offices 
till he became a member of the king's privy council, was made 
Viscount St. Albans, and finally became lord chancellor. He had 
not held this position many years, however, before heavy trouble 
came upon him. While he. was sitting on the woolsack 1 in the 
House of Lords, and presiding over that body in his capacity of 
lord chancellor, charges of receiving bribes were brought against 
him in the House of Commons. On investigation it was found 
that various persons who had had suits before him as lord chan- 
cellor had made presents of money to him, which he had accepted. 
He does not seem to have looked upon them at the time as bribes, 
nor was it proved that they influenced the decisions which he gave. 

It was quite customary at that time in all countries to give 
presents of money to all sorts of persons, from mere servants up 
to the king himself, with a view to obtaining their favorable influ- 
ence whenever there was opportunity for it. Men who wanted 
positions under the government made presents to the king's 

1 A throne stands in the House of Lords which the king or queen occu- 
pies when present and presiding. At other times the lord chancellor pre- 
sides and sits on a cushion or sack of wool, emblematic of the importance 
of wool as an English product. 



400 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

favorite; a newly appointed minister was expected to make a 
present of thousands of pounds to the king ; foreign ambassadors 
made presents or gave regular yearly sums to many persons con- 
nected with the court. The line between bribery and the giving 
of presents was a very indistinct one. Nevertheless Bacon had 
clearly overstepped it and had to suffer accordingly. Two other 
circumstances transformed his faults into a crime. There was a 
general and proper feeling that bribery was worse in the holder 
of the highest judicial position in the country than it would have 
been in any one else, and, secondly, opinion was changing, so that 
the offense of bribery was coming under more general condem- 
nation than it had been in the past. Lord Bacon himself when all 
his offenses were stated said, after explaining some of the charges, 
" I do again confess that in the points charged against me, although 
they should be taken as myself have declared them, there is a 
great deal of corruption and neglect, for which I am heartily and 
penitently sorry." The trial was by the House of Lords, in the 
form of an impeachment. They declared him guilty, asked the 
king to deprive him of his high office, condemned him to a fine 
of forty thousand pounds, to indefinite imprisonment in the Tower, 
and to incapacity to hold any office or employment in the gov- 
ernment. He himself acknowledged the sentence " just and, for 
reformation's sake, fit." He was soon released from imprison- 
ment and his fine remitted, but he had to live the rest of his life 
in retirement, consoling himself by writing. 

358. Raleigh. — Bacon was probably the greatest and wisest 
man of his time. But another man of genius of Elizabeth's time 
had also a period of prosperity and of disgrace within James's 
reign. This was Sir Walter Raleigh. During Elizabeth's reign 
he had frequently been employed by the government in various 
services, as a soldier, as an ambassador, and as a courtier, and he 
hoped to have still more influence under James. He had a clear 
mind, a bold heart, an active nature, and much experience, and 
he could have been of great service to James and to his country. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 401 



But he was not favored by the new king or by the most trusted 
ministers of the king. His old hostility to Spain and the Catholics 
was incompatible with the policy that James had determined upon. 
Not only was he not advanced but he was deprived of some of 
the offices and estates which he had held in the queen's time. 
He became restless, dissatisfied, and abusive of the ministers, and 
probably talked rashly and laid himself open to suspicion. He 
was therefore arrested and tried on the charge of taking part in a 
conspiracy to dethrone James 
and place Arabella Stuart, 
James's cousin, on the throne. 
After a long trial Raleigh was 
in 1603 declared guilty of trea- 
son and sentenced to death. 
It has since been generally be- 
lieved that his conviction was 
a mistake and that he was not 
really guilty. 

State trials at that time were 
seldom fair trials. The mod- 
ern principle that a man is to 
be considered innocent until 
he is proved to be guilty had 
not yet been adopted. On 
the contrary, if a man was 
formally accused of a crime he was treated as if he were guilty 
until he could prove himself innocent. He was not allowed to 
have counsel, he did not know what he was accused of until he 
was actually before the jury, and the witnesses against him did 
not have to testify in his presence. If the charge was one of 
treason, as in Raleigh's case, the whole feeling of the court was 
against him. One of the greatest advances made since the seven- 
teenth century has been the increased protection given to a pris- 
oner accused of crime, and the provision of careful means by 




Sir Walter Raleigh 



4 02 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

which, if innocent, he may have every opportunity of proving him- 
self so. Raleigh was unpopular and was known to be dissat- 
isfied with his position. His guilt was therefore easily accepted. 
Although he was sentenced to be executed, he was reprieved by 
the king, and though neither pardoned nor relieved of his sen- 
tence, was allowed to live on in the Tower for many years, con- 
soling himself, like Bacon, by writing a history and other works, 
and by making experiments in chemistry. 

359. Raleigh's Last Expedition and Death. — After remaining 
in imprisonment for more than twelve years, Raleigh succeeded 
in getting the king interested in his plan of sending another explor- 
ing expedition in search of El Dorado, and a gold mine on the 
Orinoco River. He was not pardoned, but he was released, 
allowed to make preparations for his voyage, and given a com- 
mission allowing him to go out in charge of an expedition and to 
occupy any lands not already possessed by Spain or any other 
European nation. James hoped to procure gold in abundance 
from some unknown mine which Raleigh was to discover. Raleigh 
himself was tempted to take all sorts of risks and make all sorts 
of promises in order to obtain freedom from the Tower and to 
exchange the monotony of a prisoner's life for the joy of explo- 
ration and the wild freedom of adventure on the sea. 

The expedition was more than a failure. The mine was not 
found, Raleigh's eldest son was killed, and a battle was fought 
with the Spaniards who were settled on the banks of the Orinoco 
River. As Raleigh had pledged himself not to go into territory 
occupied by the Spaniards, the Spanish ambassador demanded his 
punishment for piracy. James was not willing to be drawn into 
war with Spain, so after, much hesitation it was decided that satis- 
faction should be given to the Spaniards by executing Raleigh 
under the old condemnation for treason which still hung over 
him. This was done in 16 18, and one of the truest, boldest, and 
most gifted of Englishmen was beheaded, nominally for a crime of 
which he was in all probability not guilty, and really for an offense 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 403 

which most Englishmen felt was no offense at all. On the scaf- 
fold he felt the edge of the executioner's axe and murmured, 
11 This is sharp medicine, but it is a sound cure for all disease." 
When one of the bystanders begged him, as he kneeled at the 
block, to lay his head, for religious reasons, with his face toward 
the east, he replied, " What matter how the head lie, so the heart 
be right ? " He, like Bacon, knew that his heart was right, not- 
withstanding that in the difficulties of life and perplexities of the 
times they had both come under the condemnation of the law. 

360. Settlements in America. — The reign of Elizabeth had been 
a wonderful period of exploration and adventurous expeditions 
by sea to various parts of the world. The reign of James was 
a period of settlement, when Englishmen first began to estab- 
lish themselves and found colonies on the coast of America, in 
the West India Islands, and in the East Indies. Several times 
there had been efforts to make settlements in America during 
Queen Elizabeth's time, but they were premature. 1 While Raleigh 
was lying in prison under sentence of death, the plans which had 
been formed in his busy brain gained acceptance with a number 
of prominent and influential Englishmen. 

In 1606 a group of these men obtained from the king a charter 
authorizing them to make two settlements on the coast of North 
America, one in the southern, one in the northern part, and pro- 
viding a form of government for the prospective colonies. Just 
at the close of the year 1606 three small vessels with one hundred 
and five adventurers set sail from London and made their way to 
the southern coasts of those regions of North America which were 
claimed by England. Early in 1607 they landed and founded a 
colony which was named Jamestown after the king, and which 
became the first permanent English settlement in America. 

The northern settlement provided for in the charter of 1606 
was established on the coast of Maine, but the colonists suffered 
so severely that after a few months it was abandoned. The 

1 See p. 354. 



404 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

greatest difficulty in establishing the early colonies was to find 
suitable colonists. Criminals, vagabonds, and broken-down spend- 
thrifts gathered up from the streets of English cities were not 
fit to contend with the hardships of life in a new country. 
Not till more substantial classes were willing to leave the country 
could colonization take place. It was only gradually that men 
and women went over to Virginia who were able to establish a 
really successful colony. 

361 . The Pilgrim Fathers. — There was in England, however, 
another class of men who were so restless and dissatisfied with 
their position that they were ready to emigrate. These were the 
extreme Puritans. As the reign of James progressed, the laws 
requiring conformity to the established church were enforced so 
vigorously that both Roman Catholics and Puritans found life 
nearly unbearable. They were forced to attend services which 
seemed to the Roman Catholic tainted with heresy and to the 
Puritan to partake of idolatry. 

The gown which the clergyman wore, the ceremonies he per- 
formed, and many of the doctrines he taught were especially hate- 
ful to the conscientious Puritan. If Puritan laymen refused to 
attend church, or organized congregations, or held services of their 
own, they were fined and put in prison. Clergymen of Puritan 
views found their way still harder. They were not allowed to teach 
the things which they thought were true, and were not allowed to 
conduct worship as they and their parishioners wished. A group 
of men of these views, most of them living in Lincolnshire and 
Nottinghamshire, became " Separatists," — that is, they separated 
themselves from the established church altogether, and since they 
were not allowed to form a separate organization in England, left 
that country and went to live in Holland, where religious free- 
dom was allowed and where many Englishmen were already living 
for purposes of trade. They lived for a while in Amsterdam and 
then settled in Leyden, where they had a congregation of their own 
under a minister named Robinson. After remaining in Holland 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 405 

for more than twelve years, many of them became dissatisfied and 
wished to establish themselves where their course of life should 
be under their own control. They applied to James for permission 
to settle in America. He was loath to give any privileges to 
Separatists, but finally assented, and they borrowed the necessary 
money from a company in London. In 1620 the "Speedwell" 
brought the " Pilgrim Fathers," as they have always since been 
known, from Holland to England, and the "Mayflower" took 
them from Plymouth in the old England to the new Plymouth in 
New England, which was to ±>e their future home. 

362. The Puritan Emigration. — When, under James's suc- 
cessor, religious persecution in England became still harsher, and 
when the growth of the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth had proved the 
success of the experiment, many of the Puritans in England itself, 
even those who had not separated themselves from the church, 
began to look towards America as a place of greater religious free- 
dom and of greater prosperity. Land was therefore bought from 
the successors of the old London Company, and in 1628 Salem, 
to the north of Plymouth, was founded. The next year more 
colonists left England, and within succeeding years a great number 
emigrated and established a group of settlements along the coast 
of Massachusetts. In the meantime the Bermudas, Barbadoes, 
and some other islands of the West Indies were colonized, and 
the fringe of settlements was gradually made more complete 
along the whole eastern coast of North America. By the close 
of the reign of James, or soon afterwards, the foundations were 
well laid for a greater England beyond the Atlantic Ocean. 

363. Ireland and the East Indies. —A body of English and 
Scotch colonists was being established between the years 1610 
and 1630 in a region nearer home than America. This was in 
Ulster, the northernmost of the four provinces of Ireland. After 
a long series of rebellions of the native Irish in the reign of 
Elizabeth and the early years of James, the courts declared a 
large part of the land of Ulster to be forfeited to the crown. 



406 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

In 1611 the government granted this land out in separate tracts 
to proprietors who would agree to bring over settlers from Eng- 
land and Scotland. Within the next few years some 20,000 of 
these colonists came over. They were mostly from the Lowlands 
of Scotland and deeply attached to Presbyterian ism. Most of 
them were farmers, but several towns were founded and later vari- 
ous industries were established. This colonization of the north of 
Ireland is usually known as " the Plantation of Ulster." Although 
many of the former inhabitants remained in the district as laborers 
and tenants, Ulster came in this way to be quite different from 
the rest of Ireland in race, religion, occupations, and customs. 

In other parts of the world also Englishmen were getting a 
foothold. The formation of the East India Company three years 
before the close of Elizabeth's reign has already been mentioned. 
The plan of the merchants who made up that company was to 
send vessels around the Cape of Good Hope for the purpose 
of trading with the ports on the coast of India and with the 
Molucca Islands, — bringing from them pepper, cloves, nutmegs, 
and other spices, calico, precious stones, dye woods, and other 
such products ; and selling to the Orientals English cloth and other 
articles when they could. The company established agencies at 
various places in the East, but had much difficulty with the natives, 
with the Portuguese, and above all with the Dutch, who had just 
preceded them there. Nevertheless, its trade and capital grew 
and it became the strongest and richest of English commercial 
companies. 

364. Discord between the King and the Nation. — While Eng- 
land was spreading her interests thus widely through the world, 
at home there was deep dissatisfaction. James was so unfortu- 
nate as to want just those things which the greater part of his 
subjects did not want and to disapprove of the things they did 
want. He wished a close union with Scotland, a marriage treaty 
with Spain, toleration for Roman Catholics, persecution of Puri- 
tans, and peace at any price with all nations. Popular feeling, 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 407 

on the other hand, was opposed to union with Scotland, to 
the Spanish marriage, to the toleration of Roman Catholics, to 
persecution of the Puritans, and favored taking part in the war 
in Germany on the Protestant side. Besides this, James was 
constantly in need of money, while the people were reluctant to 
allow themselves to be further taxed. Above all, James believed 
he had a right to rule the country himself without criticism or 
interference on the part of others, and spoke and acted on that 
belief. There were many who agreed with him, but there was a 
far larger number who felt that the king was bound to give more 
consideration to the wishes of his subjects, who were opposed to 
his ministers, and disapproved of much of the policy that he was 
carrying out. 

365. Discord between the King and Parliament This opposi- 
tion naturally showed itself most conspicuously in parliament. 
There were eight sessions of that body during the twenty-two 
years of James's reign. A large part of the time of these meetings 
was occupied with disputes with the king, and more than one 
session was brought to a sudden close by a dissolution due to the 
king's losing patience and temper. Discord dated from the very 
first meeting of James's first parliament in 1604. The House of 
Commons claimed that the question of deciding a dispute between 
two men both claiming to have been elected to the same seat 
should be decided by their house as of old, while the king had 
ordered all such questions to be referred to the lord chancellor, 
one of his ministers. In this case, after much debate, the king 
gave way. James tried to force through the same parliament the 
union with Scotland, which parliament resisted, while the House 
of Commons strove to relieve the Puritans from some of the 
religious restrictions which were most burdensome, — a proposal 
which was opposed by the king. 

366. The Financial Dispute. — The sharpest conflict, however, 
in this and later sessions was on the money question. This con- 
test could not be avoided. Several of the permanent sources of 



408 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

income of the crown were becoming steadily less profitable. The 
amount they brought in was, it is true, the same in pounds, shil- 
lings, and pence that it had always been. But all prices were rising 
so much that the same amount of money would pay less of the 
expenses of the government than it had in former times. A new 
and more liberal system ot taxation was an absolute necessity. 
Even Queen Elizabeth with her habits of close economy in matters 
of government had scarcely been able to keep within the regular 
revenue. James needed more. Even if he had been economical 
and penurious some new taxes would have been needed, but he 
was exactly the opposite. He had a large family, which required 
a more expensive court, and instead of being parsimonious he was 
extremely lavish. He spent largely on court festivities, jewels, 
and personal adornments. He entered lightly upon lines of policy 
that cost a great deal of money. In fact he was a thoroughgoing 
spendthrift. As yet no distinction was made between expenditure 
for purposes of the government and that for the personal objects 
of the king. The result of the diminishing revenues and increasing 
expenses was that the king was soon in debt, his expenditure was 
far larger than his income, and the finances of the government 
remained in bad condition and the government in constant diffi- 
culties about money during the whole of the reign. 

James was therefore in a position in which Henry VII had never 
been and the other Tudor sovereigns but rarely. He had to make 
frequent appeals to parliament for an increase in taxes and grants. 
This gave parliament an opportunity to ask for a reform of many 
things connected with the government, to demand changes in 
the law which the king did not wish to have made, to criticise 
his wastefulness, and to object to his lavish grants to worthless 
courtiers. At several periods a long time was allowed to pass 
without any session of parliament being called. There was no 
session held during the whole seven years between 1614 and 162 1. 
But the money needs of the king always made it necessary sooner or 
later to call parliament again. When it met, disputes immediately 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 409 

arose on the questions of policy in which the desires of the major- 
ity of the people and those of the king differed, and on special 
grievances about which the members of parliament complained. 

The different ideas held by the king and parliament as to their 
respective powers came out clearly in these disputes. James 
summoned the members of parliament; before him and scolded 
them or praised them as if they were children and he their father. 
On their side they drew up protests and claims as to their rights, 
or refused to grant money unless the king gave way to their 
requests. This conflict of opinion came to a head in the meeting 
of the year 162 1. The House of Commons drew up a long 
petition to the king, in which they pointed out much that they 
thought was wrong in the government and dangerous to England 
at home and abroad, and asked him to give aid to the Protestants 
in the war on the continent, to make war on the king of Spain, 
to marry the prince to a Protestant princess, and to enforce 
the laws against Roman Catholics. Although this petition was 
expressed in respectful and even humble terms, James was very 
angry and wrote a sharp letter to the commons, telling them 
that they had been discussing matters far beyond their reach or 
capacity, and infringing on his royal prerogative. He forbade 
them to mention the matter of the prince's marriage, to say any- 
thing against the honor of the king of Spain, or in any other man- 
ner to meddle with affairs of government or "deep matters of 
state." As to their privileges of freedom of speech in parlia- 
ment, he wanted them to understand that he considered himself 
" very free and able to punish any man's misdemeanors in parlia- 
ment, as well during their sitting as after." He threatened to 
use this power " upon any occasion of any man's insolent behavior 
there." 

367. The Great Protestation. — The House of Commons was 
not willing to acknowledge this doctrine, so after a further exchange 
of letters with the king they drew up and entered on their minute 
book a formal protest declaring their right of free discussion. Its 



410 • A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

most important paragraph was as follows : "That the liberties, fran- 
chises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient 
and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of Eng- 
land ; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the. 
king, state, and defense of the realm and of the church of England 
and the making and maintenance of laws and redress of griev- 
ances which daily happen within this realm are proper subjects 
and matters of counsel and debate in parliament ; and that in the 
handling and proceeding of those businesses every member of the 
House hath and of right ought to have freedom of speech, to pro- 
pound, treat, reason, and bring to conclusion the same." James 
heard of this action and a few days afterwards, during an adjourn- 
ment of parliament, sent for the journal in which this " Great 
Protestation " was entered, and in the presence of his council 
and several of the judges with his own hands tore out the page 
containing it. Shortly afterwards he dissolved parliament. 

368. Close of the Reign of James. — The one remaining parlia- 
ment of James was on better terms with him. By this time his 
plan for the Spanish marriage and the whole fabric of his foreign 
policy which was built upon it had fallen, and he did not feel 
the same self-confidence as of old. His son and the duke of 
Buckingham were taking the powers of the crown out of his hands, 
and parliament obtained his consent to measures that he would 
have resisted in earlier days. Among other things the lord treas- 
urer Middlesex was impeached and driven out of office, another 
instance of the revival of the old parliamentary power of impeach- 
ment. Parliament, on the other hand, granted liberal taxes for 
the war with Spain which was now imminent. James died in 1625 
and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

369. Charles I. — Since Charles and Buckingham had exerted 
so great an influence over James during the last two years of his 
life, there was no great break when Charles took the throne on 
his father's death. There was little probability that his govern- 
ment would be a wiser one than that of James, or his reign more 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 411 



successful. He was finer looking than his father and more manly 
in manner and character, with more personal dignity, self-respect, 
and conscientiousness. The many portraits that have come down 
to us, painted for the most part by the court painter of the time, 
Vandyke, show a handsome face and a graceful person. He was 
fond of ceremony and formality. On the other hand, he was 
reserved and silent. He was not nearly so well educated as his 
father, and he was narrow- 
minded and slow of appre- 
hension. He could never 
see two sides of a question, 
and he had no respect for 
those who differed from him 
or for their arguments. He 
had been brought up to 
believe in all the high ideas 
of the authority and inde- 
pendence of the king which 
his father had held and which 
were fashionable at his 
father's court, and he held 
these views with a tenacity 
and a conscientious serious- 
ness which made him even less reasonable than his father. Buck- 
ingham was more influential than ever. He not only took part in 
all the discussions of the privy council but was constantly with 
Charles privately and was consulted by him in everything. 

370. War with Spain. — When Charles and Buckingham on 
their visit to Spain had found themselves deluded and outwitted, 
they had gone to the opposite extreme and determined to make 
war upon that country. When the new reign opened, therefore, 
England was being plunged as recklessly into war as she had 
been inconsiderately pledged to peace at the beginning of James's 
reign. In order to get help for this war the new king and his 




Charles I 



412 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

favorite had made a whole series of plans, promises, and treaties. 
They expected to carry them out themselves, and thought that 
parliament would furnish the armies, ships, and money without 
asking any questions. But one of their plans after another failed. 
An army which was sent to the Netherlands accomplished nothing 
and was almost destroyed by disease ; a fleet which was lent to 
the king of France was used by him not to fight against Spain 
but to put down the Huguenots, much to the disgust of the Eng- 
lish Protestants. A third fleet and army was organized in 1625 
and sent as, in the old days of Drake to capture Cadiz and there 
wait for and capture the Spanish fleet which was due from America, 
laden with gold and silver from the mines. But nobody's heart 
was in the expedition. The volunteer navies of Drake's time 
were a thing of the past. The ships were now mostly merchant 
vessels, forced to take part in the expedition, and their captains 
wanted only to keep out of danger and get safely home again. 
The soldiers who were taken along were for the most part men 
pressed into the service. Everything was mismanaged ; they failed 
to capture Cadiz, and the treasure ships slipped safely into port 
while they were looking for them somewhere else. 

371. War with France. — Soon England drifted into war with 
France also. Another fleet and army under Buckingham himself 
were sent in 1627 to the Isle of Rhe in the west of France to help 
the Huguenots of Rochelle and to strike a blow at the French gov- 
ernment. This likewise was a complete failure. The fact is that 
these expeditions were looked upon as private ventures of the king 
and his favorite only. They were not authorized nor approved 
by parliament, there was no national interest taken in them, and 
no proper equipment,. support, Or leadership provided for them. 
The English have never fought successfully unless their hearts have 
been in the contest, and at this time their interest in the matters 
about which they were fighting was very slight indeed. Thus in 
foreign affairs Charles and his minister had nothing but a record 
of blunders and failures to show to parliament when it met. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 413 



372. Charles and Parliament. — This naturally did not make it 
easier for Charles to get along with his parliaments. He asked 
his first parliament in 1625 to make a large appropriation of 
money, but did not explain how it was to be used or why there 
had been such failure already. Parliament declined to grant the 
money if Buckingham was to have the direction of the spending 
of it. They had no confidence in his ability or in his character, 
and believed that the money might be used for something of 
which they did not approve, or if devoted to war purposes would 
almost certainly be wasted and bring but another harvest of fail- 
ures. Back of this lack of confidence was their opposition to the 
very position and powers of Buck- 
ingham and their wish to use the 
opportunity to put pressure on the 
king to remove him from his offices 
and influence. Charles, on the other 
hand, resented this as an effort on 
the part of parliament to prevent 
him from choosing his own ministers 
and to get practical control of the 
government. He therefore dis- 
solved parliament, even though it 
had voted him only a small sum of 
money and had done almost nothing 
in the way of legislation. 

The next year a new parliament was summoned which took still 
stronger ground against Buckingham. The House of Commons 
now impeached him before the House of Lords, and charged him 
with some crimes and many lesser offenses, few of which could 
ever have been proved. Charles did not wait to let the proof be 
shown, but in great anger dissolved parliament before it had time 
to carry the trial farther or in fact to do anything else. 

New subjects of discontent now sprang up. In the active 
preparations for war made by the king and his ministers there 




Duke of Buckingham 



414 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

had been much disregard of the people. Soldiers were billeted 1 
on householders without their consent. When disputes broke out 
on this account private citizens were punished or had their cases 
settled by the decisions of the military commanders. Although 
parliament had refused to authorize taxes to carry on the war, 
the king ordered a forced loan. That is to say, the sheriffs and 
other officials of the king throughout the country were required 
to summon before them all the persons of any property in their 
districts and put all the pressure they could, by persuasion, threat 
of the king's displeasure, and otherwise, upon them to induce 
them to lend money to the king. It was well understood that 
the loan was not likely to be repaid, and it was generally felt to 
be simply an unauthorized tax. When some men refused to pay 
the forced loan, they were imprisoned for a time on the mere 
order of the king and the privy council without any special charge 
being made against them and without being brought to trial. 

373. The Petition of Right. — When Charles's third parliament 
met, in 1628, these recent grievances were taken up even before 
anything was said about Buckingham or older subjects of dis- 
pute. Several leaders now became prominent in the debates in 
parliament. Among these the most conspicuous were Sir Thomas 
Wentworth, Sir John Eliot, and John Pym. Wentworth was a coun- 
try gentleman from Yorkshire. He was a born reformer, clear- 
headed, vigorous, and determined. He was disgusted with the 
incompetence of Buckingham and the inefficiency of the gov- 
ernment. He had no great faith in parliament, but he thought 
it could bring enough pressure to bear on the king to induce him 
to choose wiser ministers and to follow a more reasonable policy. 
Eliot was a gentle, high-minded patriot, who believed thoroughly 
in the wisdom and devotion of parliament, and glorified the old 
laws and personal rights of Englishmen. He was willing to 

1 Billeting is placing soldiers to board in private families, the rate of 
payment not being one voluntarily agreed upon but set by the government 
or military authorities. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 415 

perform any labor and make any sacrifice for the sake of what 
he considered the preservation of the rights and liberties of the 
nation. Both Wentworth and Eliot were vigorous and influential 
speakers and exercised much influence over the House of Com- 
mons. Pym was still more persuasive and skillful in expressing 
the feelings of the members and carrying measures through parlia- 
ment. He was by nature a party leader. These men and other 
patriots combined to proclaim the illegality of the actions spoken 
of above and to try to get a measure passed declaring them so. 
When the king resisted, Wentworth withdrew from the struggle. 
The other leaders, however, drew up what was called the " Peti- 
tion of Right." This was a law declaring that enforced billeting of 
soldiers, trial by martial law, loans or taxes not imposed by parlia- 
ment, and imprisonment without a specific charge were all illegal 
and should not be practiced in the future. This was passed 
through the two houses and Charles was asked to sign it. He 
resisted for a long time, and tried to evade its acceptance or 
rejection by giving an answer in general terms. But parliament 
was insistent and the king's need of money great. He therefore 
gave way, agreed to the Petition, and it became part of the law of 
the kind. This was in 1628. 

The Petition of Right has often been compared with the Great 
Charter signed four hundred years before, and although it is much 
shorter there are in fact several points of similarity. They both 
have to do with practical questions which had recently been 
in dispute rather than with general principles. They have both 
since been referred to as statements of fundamental principles of 
the English constitution. The really important point, however, is 
that they were both wrung by representatives of the people f rom 
an unwilling king. They showed that the king had not unre- 
stricted power in England but was bound to acknowledge certain 
rights of his subjects. In 1628 more than one hundred and fifty 
years had passed since parliament had forced any measure upon 
an unwilling ruler. During this long period the kings had been 



416 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

nearly absolute rulers and parliament had been willing to have 
it so. The signing of the Petition of Right by Charles I, therefore, 
represents the beginning of a new period of assertion of the rights 
of the people. With these questions out of the way the House of 
Commons again began an attack upon Buckingham, but the king 
immediately prorogued 1 parliament for six months. During this 
prorogation Buckingham was murdered by a man who had a pri- 
vate grudge against him, and had besides been stirred to action by 
the hard things said in parliament against the unpopular minister. 
374. Religious Disputes. — Neither the Petition of Right nor 
the death of Buckingham settled all the questions in dispute 
between Charles and his parliament. The religious question was 
still an unsolved problem, as it was long to remain. King and 
parliament, as usual, were on different sides. As the bitterness 
of the first contests of the Reformation passed away, a reaction 
occurred in the minds of many men. They were less hostile 
towards the Roman Catholics, they saw more to be admired and 
imitated in the old forms and ceremonies of the middle ages, and 
their theological opinions were different from those of the more 
extreme Protestants. Such persons, however, were in a minority. 
They had the sympathy and support of the king, and they were 
strong among the clergy, but the majority of the members of par- 
liament and the great body of the people had no such tendencies. 
Puritanism, on the contrary, was becoming stronger every day, and 
the House of Commons represented the Puritanism of the time. 
Parliament therefore tried to punish those clergymen who intro- 
duced "popish" ceremonies or wrote books of non-Calvinistic 
theology. The king, on the other hand, protected them and 

1 Prorogation of parliament means the postponement of its sittings for a 
certain time at the command of the king. Adjournment means a similar 
postponement by parliament's own action. Dissolution is a closing of its 
sessions altogether, so that new members will have to be elected when it is 
to meet again. The king alone can dissolve parliament, and he alone can 
order the election of a new one. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 417 

forbade parliament to mention the matter. The fate of the Stuart 
kings to be in opposition to the majority of their subjects thus led 
Charles into a struggle with parliament on the religious question. 
375. Tonnage and Poundage. — During the same weeks another 
dispute was in progress in a field seemingly far away from religion 
but bringing up the same conflict of powers between king and 
parliament. Tonnage and poundage was an old and lucrative 
import and export duty of so much on each tun or cask of wine 
imported, and so much on each bale of wool and a few other arti- 
cles exported. It had for more than two centuries been granted 
to each new king for his lifetime by parliament at the first session 
after his accession. The first parliament of Charles had in a spirit 
of defiance granted it to him for a year only, intending to make 
it permanent when their grievances had been attended to. The 
sudden dissolution of this parliament had prevented its grant in a 
permanent form and it was left as a temporary tax. Charles natu- 
rally felt that parliament was trying to deprive him of old estab- 
lished royal rights, and after the year ran out ordered his revenue 
officers to continue the levy and collection of tonnage and pound- 
age, even without the assent of parliament. In 1629 parliament 
took the matter up again and a bill was brought in to grant tonnage 
and poundage for one year more. The king sent word that he 
would not approve the grant in this form and continued to collect 
it on his own authority. When parliament appealed to the Petition 
of Right the king replied that it was only taxes that were included 
in the Petition, and that he never understood it to cover tonnage 
and poundage, which was a customs duty, not a tax. The point 
was a more important one than it might seem, because England 
was fast becoming a great commercial country, and duties upon 
exports and imports formed a large part of the income of the 
government. Tonnage and poundage itself produced one fourth 
of the revenue of the crown. If the king could collect these 
commercial duties without any law allowing it by parliament, he 
would be to that extent freed from his dependence on parliament. 

RE 



418 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

These quarrels came to a climax when parliament reassembled 
in the autumn of 1629. Some of the clergymen who had revived 
the old ceremonial forms were summoned before it, and revenue 
officers who had seized the goods of persons refusing to pay ton- 
nage and poundage were likewise ordered to appear before par- 
liament. The king, however, refused to allow his custom officers 
to appear at the bar of parliament. Things had reached a dead- 
lock. The sittings were prorogued for a few weeks and when they 
met an order was announced from the king for another prorogation. 
One of the wildest scenes that ever occurred in parliament ensued. 
As the speaker of the House of Commons arose to announce the 
king's message two members rushed forward, pushed him down 
into his chair, and held him there while Eliot read a series of reso- 
lutions declaring that whoever brought in new and unauthorized 
opinions in religion and whoever paid or advised the payment of 
tonnage and poundage without grant of parliament was an enemy 
to the kingdom and a betrayer of its liberties. Some members 
rushed to free the speaker, others locked the doors and held the 
former back. For a moment it seemed that the members would 
draw their swords and fight. But amidst the uproar the resolutions 
were put and carried triumphantly. Then the speaker was freed, 
the doors were unlocked, and the members poured out. The 
king was very angry at this defiance of his authority. A procla- 
mation was immediately issued announcing that parliament was 
dissolved. 

376. Personal Government of Charles. — This occurred in 1629. 
It was the last parliament called in England for eleven years. If 
Charles could have had his way, parliament would not have been 
called again. The problem had arisen as to whether the king 
or parliament was, in the last resort, the supreme ruler of the 
country, and the king was determined to solve it in his own 
way. The years that followed were taken up with this effort to 
rule without parliament, and are commonly called the period of 
the personal government of Charles I. 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 419 

In making up his mind to rule without parliament, Charles was 
doing just what kings in most other countries were doing at about 
the same time. In France, in Spain, in Germany, and in other 
countries the bodies of representatives of the people which cor- 
responded to the English parliament were either being abolished 
altogether or reduced to a very inferior position. It was the nat- 
ural culmination of a strong centralized monarchy as a form of 
government. The Tudor sovereigns only called parliament when 
they chose, but they never tried to abolish the custom of consult- 
ing parliament. Under James I the matter had hung in the 
balance. Now it seemed that under Charles the scale of absolute 
government had shown itself the heavier. 

For some years this personal government of Charles bade fair 
to be a success. He had much better ministers than during the 
early part of his reign. His privy council was made up now 
mostly of men who had risen through their abilities, who did 
their work well, and who were' quite willing to accept the claim 
of the king to absolute power. Lord Weston was lord treasurer 
and carried on the financial business skillfully. The king had 
already received one great recruit from his parliamentary oppo- 
nents. Wentworth, who had previously opposed him in parlia- 
ment, took office under the king, became a member of the privy 
council, and was made first a baron, then a viscount, and finally 
earl of Strafford. Wentworth, or Strafford, as he should now be 
called, ought not to be considered a turncoat. He had never 
objected to the possession of high powers by the king, and had 
opposed him only for the purpose of inducing him to choose 
wiser ministers. He had never believed that parliament ought 
to have a higher position in the government than the king. He 
was not a Puritan and did not sympathize with the religious intol- 
erance of parliament. When he entered the service of Charles, 
therefore, he probably did so conscientiously and without any 
feeling of dishonor, though even in his own time he was hated 
by his older associates as a deserter. 



420 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 




Charles's principal adviser in all matters concerning the church 
was William Laud, bishop of London, who was later promoted to 
be archbishop of Canterbury. Without being a man of genius, 
like Strafford, Laud was conscientious, laborious, and determined. 

There were no triflers in Charles's 
council, and the king himself took 
an active interest in the work of 
government. 

377. A Policy of Peace and Order. 
— The wars with Spain and France 
had never had any very real reason 
for existence, and peace was now 
made with both countries. Good 
order at home was somewhat more 
difficult to obtain. The three mem- 
bers of the House of Commons who 
had made themselves most con- 
spicuous in the disorder at the close 
of the last session were arrested 
and tried on a charge of riot. They refused to plead, claiming that 
the judges could not take notice of things which had been done in 
parliament. They were nevertheless declared guilty, fined, and 
imprisoned. Towards Sir John Eliot, the most prominent of 
them, the king was more bitter than towards any one else during 
his whole career. Eliot was an old antagonist of the king in the 
earlier parliaments and had been the principal mover against Buck- 
ingham. He was now suffering from consumption and begged 
the king to be allowed to go to his country house to recover his 
health. Charles refused and Eliot died in the Tower of London. 
Even then the king refused to allow his children to take his body 
to be buried with those of his ancestors in his old home. He was 
buried with other state criminals in Tower Yard. The persecu- 
tion of Eliot was a striking instance of Charles's poor judgment of 
character. He believed Eliot to be a wicked man, actuated only 



Archbishop Laud 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 42 1 

by faction and interested motives. Yet there have been few purer 
patriots, few more unselfish and beautiful characters, than Sir John 
Eliot. He believed in the supremacy of parliament in a contest 
with the king, but only because he believed that parliament was 
the true representative of the liberties and virtue of England. 

The two great difficulties of the time continued to be religion 
and the finances. Puritanism and the " high church " reaction 
were both growing stronger. The former was strong in numbers, 
zeal, and union with the cause of parliament and popular liberties. 
The latter was strong in the support of the king, the authority 
of the bishops, the influence of the universities, and the approval 
of many persons of moderate tendencies. Both parties included 
men of great learning and leaders who were thoroughly in earnest. 
But the party which possessed power was not likely to refrain from 
using it against its opponents, or to appreciate their excellences of 
character. 

378. Punishment by Star Chamber and High Commission. — 
Many of the more violent Puritans were therefore prosecuted and 
punished for their writings or actions. This was done by Laud 
or some other person in authority bringing them to trial either 
before the Star Chamber or the Court of High Commission. 

It will be remembered that the Star Chamber was a special 
court for the trial of irregular cases and the punishment of those 
who could not be reached by the ordinary courts. It had become 
stronger since the time of Henry VII. At this time it consisted 
of all the members of the king's privy council with the addition of 
two judges. It was therefore merely an instrument in the hands 
of the king and his ministry to carry out their will under the form 
of judicial action. The Court of High Commission was a body of 
bishops and other clergymen who were empowered to carry out 
the ecclesiastical laws of the country. This body was almost 
equally under the power of the king's council, or at least of Arch- 
bishop Laud, who was the most influential member of both bodies. 
To be brought to trial before either of these courts was therefore 



422 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

practically the same as to be condemned by them, for the same 
persons both prosecuted and judged. 

In 1630 a Scotch pamphlet writer named Leighton was flogged 
and had his ears cut off by order of the Star Chamber for writing 
bitterly against the bishops. A short time later another man was 
heavily fined for breaking a church window enriched with pictures 
of saints, which seemed to him superstitious. One of the heaviest 
punishments ever inflicted was upon a learned lawyer named 
William Prynne. He was an extreme Puritan and wrote various 
books against drinking healths, against the fashion of men wearing 
their hair long, and other customs of the day, which seemed to 
him, as to many other Puritans, wicked. Later he attacked the 
prevailing theatrical representations in a long, learned, and dull 
book called Hislriomastix, that is to say, " The Scourge of Stage 
Players." It was a series of charges of sinfulness against the 
drama and against the habit of attending the theater, in which 
his arguments were fortified by numberless examples drawn from 
antiquity and all history. His statement that all the Roman 
emperors who had encouraged the drama came to a bad end was 
considered to be directed against Charles, who was a great patron 
of the theater ; and his charge in the index that all women who 
took part in plays were women of bad character was supposed by 
some readers to be a reflection on the queen, who had recently 
acted in a court play. He was prosecuted for these libels before 
the Star Chamber, and as a mark of their loyalty the ministers 
who made up the court condemned him to stand in the pillory, 
to have his ears cut off, to be fined five thousand pounds, and to 
be imprisoned till the king should release him. 

This was in 1633. Four years later Prynne with two others 
was prosecuted again before the Star Chamber on the charge of 
libeling the archbishop. They were all sentenced to the pillory 
with loss of the ears of those who had not already been mutilated, 
to pay fines of five thousand pounds each, and to be imprisoned 
for life. These sentences seemed the worse in that they were 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 423 

inflicted on men of the legal profession, of private means and of high 
character. Crowds came around to express their pity for them 
at the pillory, flowers were strewn in their path as they walked 
thither, and the sympathy of thousands followed them to the various 
prisons to which they were taken. There were not many such 
prosecutions, but they made a great impression on the country. 
As a matter of fact Laud was obstinately determined to force every- 
body to conform to his and the king's ideas in religious practice, 
and this was gradually arousing as determined an opposition. 

379. The Metropolitical Visitation. — Laud was a good man; 
learned, conscientious, and hard-working. There were, however, 
three reasons for his failure to rule the church and advise the king 
wisely. He did not understand or sympathize with the enthusiastic 
personal religious feelings of the Puritans, who included a large 
number of the best men in England ; he had the exaggerated 
belief prevalent among the officials of his time of the duty of sub- 
mission to authority in all things ; and he was harsh, overbearing, 
and unwilling to try to persuade men if he thought he had the law 
on his side. In his effort to force all clergymen and laymen to use 
the same forms of religious service he carried out between 1634 and 
1637 a "metropolitical visitation" 1 in each of the archbishoprics 
of Canterbury and York. He either went himself or sent an official 
to each parish to question the clergyman there as to his practices. 
Unless the rector or vicar was in the habit of using the exact 
forms of the prayer book, unless he was willing to bow whenever 
the name of Jesus was mentioned in the service, and to have the 
communion table always placed at the east end of the church, he 
was referred to the archbishop for discipline, and in extreme cases 
brought before the Court of High Commission and removed from 
his office as minister. Laud claimed that he was only enforcing 
the law as it stood, but as a matter of fact the meaning given to 

1 Metropolitan is another name for an archbishop. A metropolitical 
visitation is an inquiry made by the archbishop or metropolitan into the 
condition of the church in his province. 



424 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the words of the law had with the growth of Puritanism changed 
very much in the last seventy-five years, and Laud was really try- 
ing to drive the whole church of England back into ways and 
beliefs that it had left behind it. He not only became very much 
hated for trying to enforce a law which men did not believe to 
be right or just, but it was widely, though of course mistakenly, 
believed that he was gradually preparing the way to reintroduce 
the old Roman Catholic religion, and that he would soon propose 
the restoration of the pope's authority. 

380. The Declaration of Sports. — Laud opposed the Puritans 
in still other ways. They were usually very rigid in their observ- 
ance of Sunday. Laud's party, according to the old mediaeval 
custom, allowed much more freedom of action and amusement 
on that day. The magistrates throughout the country were very 
generally Puritan in their feelings, and they as well as the Puritan 
clergy imposed punishments on the people for what they con- 
sidered breaches of proper Sabbath observances. At Laud's 
advice, therefore, Charles reissued the " Declaration of Sports," a 
proclamation originally put forth by James, authorizing with some 
restrictions the playing of ball, dancing on the green, and other 
amusements on Sunday afternoons, and forbidding judges or min- 
isters to punish people for them. The king ordered that this 
declaration should be read in all the churches on a certain Sun- 
day. This order aroused great resistance, for to many of the 
clergy it seemed a wicked, ungodly permission to do evil. Thus 
the outward uniformity and order of the church were being secured 
and enforced by Laud, but at the price of an amount of suppressed 
antagonism that was bound to show itself sooner or later. 

381. Distraint of Knighthood, Monopolies, and the Forests. — In 
financial matters the lord treasurer had introduced many reforms 
increasing income and decreasing outlay. The close of the wars 
with Spain and France had also reduced expenditure. The old 
tonnage and poundage and other customs and duties were still 
collected without authority of parliament, and, fortunately for the 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 42$ 

king, the income from these was increasing. Still the problem of 
how to get along without the constant grant of new appropriations 
by parliament was a difficult one. After all, additional revenue 
must be found somewhere, and Charles's ministers put their wits 
to work to devise plans. The result was a series of irregular expe- 
dients similar to the forced loan already described. All men who 
held land worth forty pounds a year in rent ought by an old law to 
become knights and hold their lands by feudal tenure. Although 
a great many had been knighted at coronations and other festive 
occasions, yet the old requirement had not been enforced for 
centuries, and the value of money had changed so much in the 
meantime that even small landholders would be subject to it if it 
were enforced. The king's officers, however, proceeded to collect 
fines from all persons who had neglected to take up knighthood 
under this law. The courts supported them, though the persons 
who paid the fines all felt that they were being unjustly treated. 

Monopolies given to individual men for the sale or manufacture 
of certain articles had been lately forbidden by law, but nothing 
had been said in the statute about incorporated companies or groups 
of persons. Advantage was taken of this to create corporations 
and to give them the sole right to carry on certain industries in 
return for substantial payments made to the government. 

Much of the land of England lay within the old tracts that 
were known as royal forests. Men who held these lands were not 
allowed to inclose them with hedges or fences and were limited 
in other ways in their use of them. These limitations, however, 
had not been enforced and had been very generally forgotten and 
frequently violated. Fines were now collected from landowners 
who were responsible for these encroachments. 

382. Ship Money. — In these ways income was obtained, but at 
the same time one class of the people after another was being 
made to feel that their rights were being sacrificed in order that the 
king might have his way. Another scheme was now tried which 
was a still more general attack on men's property and liberties. 



426 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



The income which the king received could be made to meet 
ordinary running expenses, but was certainly not sufficient to pro- 
vide for any new emergencies. Yet the navy badly needed funds. 
The Dutch and the French navies were growing rapidly, while 
the English was declining. It had been an ancient custom in 
England that the seaport towns should contribute the vessels neces- 
sary for the national defense, or the money necessary to build 
them. In 1634, therefore, the king issued what were called " writs 
of ship money" to all seaport towns. The plan was quite success- 
ful. The seaport towns could not provide vessels of the size now 

usual in warfare, but they gave the 
money by which the government built 
and manned them. In fact the plan 
succeeded so well that the next year 
and the next, ship money was collected 
from all the counties of the kingdom 
as well as from the seaports. More- 
over, as there was no restriction upon 
the use to which the king and his 
ministers should put money when once 
it was gotten into the treasury, ship 
money bade fair to be a permanent 
and lucrative source of income inde- 
pendent of parliamentary grants. 

The king and ministers claimed that ship money was not 
properly a tax but a payment made in lieu' of military and naval 
service. It was generally felt, however, that it was an extortion, 
and if allowed to become a custom would free the king from the 
necessity of ever consulting parliament on money matters. A 
well-to-do landowner in Buckinghamshire, Sir John Hampden, 
felt this so strongly that he refused to pay the twenty shillings 
levied on his property. This brought the matter into the Court 
of Exchequer to be tested. A long and famous trial was held. 
The lawyers representing Hampden set forth the popular views of 




Hampden 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 427 



the restricted powers of the king and the fundamental rights of 
his subjects. This was a welcome opportunity, for when par- 
liament was not in session there was scarcely any means for 
such opinions to be publicly expressed. There were no news- 
papers, and no books could be legally published without having the 
approval of the government. No mass meetings were held, and 
there were few places where men got together to talk over public 
affairs, except at court, where liberal views were not in fashion. 

On the other hand, the lawyers for the king defended his high 
powers, and there was of course strong pressure brought to bear 
on the judges to decide in his favor. 
When the decision came to be given, 
as it was in 1638, seven of the judges 
decided for the crown, five for Hamp- 
den, The king therefore had the vic- 
tory, and ship money was declared to 
be legal. The decision was, however, 
given by such a narrow margin that it 
was little better than a defeat for the 
king and his ministers, and accordingly 
there was much rejoicing in the country. 

383. The Earl of Strafford Principal 
Minister. — As time passed on Went- 

worth, earl of Strafford, became more and more influential in the 
king's council. In many ways he was the ablest man in England 
at that time, and he was devoted heart and soul to a successful 
administration of the king's personal government. For a time he 
acted as president of the Council of the North, a court which took 
charge of all royal interests in the northern counties of England. 
It had been formed after the overthrow of the Pilgrimage of Grace, 
in the reign of Henry VIII, instead of a parliament which Henry 
had promised to call for the settlement of the grievances of the 
northern counties. In 1632 Wentworth was made lord deputy 
of Ireland. Here he carried on an administration vigorous and 




Strafford 



428 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

enlightened to a degree almost unknown before in the history of 
that unfortunate country. During this time he was' in correspond- 
ence with the king, and his counsel was occasionally asked and 
given on political questions. Finally in 1639 he was summoned 
to court by Charles and became his principal and constant adviser. 
Strafford's motto was "Thorough," by which he meant a thorough- 
going administration and a thorough devotion of every one to the. 
interests of the king and of the country. In the north of England, 
in Ireland, and now at court he was determined that no opposi- 
tion, whether of self-interest, of old tradition, or of a claim of 
parliamentary rights and privileges, should stand in the way of 
good and effective administration of the government. This was 
a high ideal, but it was the ideal of a despot, and it was likely to 
intensify, not to lessen, the growing spirit of resistance. 

How long this form of government could have been kept up 
if nothing unforeseen or unusual had happened it is hard to say. 
Peace and order were undoubtedly being kept at home and 
abroad, and in one way or another money was being found to 
pay the regular expenses of government. At the same time there 
was a growing feeling of dissatisfaction and anger throughout the 
country, which could hardly be prevented from soon bursting forth 
in one form or another. 

384. Summary of the Period from 1603 to 1640. — James I and 
Charles I had had to bear the brunt of the rising spirit of inde- 
pendence characteristic of England in the seventeenth century. A 
degree of absolutism in government against which the parliaments 
of Henry VIII or Elizabeth would have raised no murmur awak- 
ened the active and heated resistance of the parliaments of James 
and Charles. This growing desire for independence and for shar- 
ing in the control of government was closely connected with the 
growth of Puritanism. An independent, individual form of reli- 
gion was apt to develop an assertive spirit in political matters. An 
unavoidable crisis in taxation also happened in the time of the 
first two Stuarts. The rise of prices due to the influx of silver 



PERSONAL MONARCHY OF THE STUARTS 429 

and gold into Europe from the mines of Mexico and Peru neces- 
sitated a larger money income for the government. This was 
staved off somewhat by the increasing productiveness of the im- 
port and export duties, but the pressure was constant and the Stuart 
rulers were in a position of absolute dependence on the grants of 
parliament, a disadvantage from which the Tudors scarcely suf- 
fered. They were also put before their subjects in the unenviable 
light of making demands for money far beyond those of the pre- 
ceding rulers. 

To meet these difficult conditions James and Charles were 
especially lacking in good judgment as to men and measures, 
and were dominated by a haughty sense of their own powers and 
rights which kept them from anything like conciliation or com- 
promise. The result was that the successive meetings of parlia- 
ment were occasions for endless disputes, and when parliament 
was not in session the king was carrying on a policy which was fast 
making the breach between him and his subjects too wide to be 
spanned by any agreement. The last test of this policy was in 
the period of personal government of Charles, from 1629 to 1640, 
and it was a failure, as will be seen from the next chapter. 



General Reading. — The best general history of this period is Gardiner, 
History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the 
Civil War, 10 vols. It is full, scholarly, and fair to all parties, but is of 
course very long. The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution 
(Epochs of History) is a little book by the same author and with many 
of the same excellences. Green, Short History, chap, viii, sects. 1-5. 
Macaulay, Bacon and Hampden. Two brilliant and suggestive essays, of 
especially great value to young readers for the strong impression of person- 
ality they convey. Hume, Sir Walter Raleigh, is one of the best of many 
biographies of that favorite character. Hutton, William Laud, ; s good 
though extremely favorable. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, 
is a standard work. Montague, English Constitutional History, and 
Medley, English Constitutional History, are very good shorter works. 
Trevelyan, England render the Stuarts, is an extremely interesting history 
of the period of this and the next three chapters. 



X 



430 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Contemporary Sources. — The constitutional documents of the period 
are given in great fullness and with valuable introductions in Prothero, 
Select Documents of the Time of Elizabeth and fames I, and Gardiner, 
Select Documents of the Purita?i Revolution. The first writ of ship money 
and other documents are given in Adams and Stephens, Select Docu- 
ments, Nos. 181-193. Documents concerning the Puritans are gathered in 
Arber Repri7its. Some more varied papers are in Kendall, Source- Book, 
Nos. 68-75, an d Colby, Selections from the Sources, Nos. 68-70. This 
period lends itself especially well to illustration by contemporary writings. 
A number of extracts from these are in Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 244-279. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel; James, Arabella 
Stuart; Ainsworth, The Spanish Match, Guy Fawkes, and The Star 
Chamber; and Marry at, The Children of the New Forest, refer to this 
period. Wordsworth, The Pilgrim Fathers, is a fine sonnet; and on the 
same subject is Mrs. Hemans, The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Puritans, Macaulay, Essay on Milton; 

(2) The Gunpowder Plot, Gardiner, History of England, Vol. I, chap, vi ; 

(3) The Thirty Years' War, Robinson, History of Western Europe, chap. 
xxix ; (4) The Ideas of Laud, Traill, Social England, Vol. IV, 
pp. 26-33; (5) Voyages and Travels under James and Charles, ibid., 
pp. 51-57; (6) The East India Company, ibid., pp. 130-138; (7) Disputes 
between King and Parliament, Prothero, Statutes and Constitutional 
Documents, pp. 310-317; (8) Riot in the House of Commons, Kendall, 
Source-Book, No. 72 ; (9) The Voyage of the " Mayflower," Colby, Selections 
from the Sources, No. 70; (10) An Ideal Commonwealth, Bacon, New 
Atlantis (in Morley's Universal Library). 



CHAPTER XV 

THE GREAT REBELLION AND THE COMMONWEALTH 
1640-1660 

385. The Scottish Rebellion. — The actual breaking up of 
Charles's plan of government without parliament came from out- 
side of England. He was king, it will be remembered, of Scot- 
land as well as of England. There were difficulties there which 
were still greater than those in England, though of a somewhat 
different kind. They were principally in regard to religion. In 
Scotland the mass of the people had carried the Reformation 
much farther than even the English Puritans would have advo- 
cated. Among other changes a set form of service was given 
up, episcopacy was abolished, and the presbyterian system 
introduced. 1 But the king had never been satisfied with this ex- 
treme simplicity of church government, and most of the Scotch 
nobles sided with him. Little by little, therefore, James had 
secured the reappointment of bishops, and then a restoration to 
them of at least a part of their old powers. Charles took still 
more active steps to make the Scotch church like the estab- 
lished church in England. In 1637 some of the Scotch bishops 
at the command of the king and with the help of Laud drew 
up a prayer book much like that of England, though even less 

1 Episcopacy means the government of the church by bishops, each 
having charge of his own large diocese. Presbyterianism means the 
government of the church by presbyteries instead of by bishops, a presby- 
tery being a body made up of the pastors and certain laymen or elders from 
all the parishes within a certain district. The separatist, independent, or 
congregational system was the plan of allowing each congregation to govern 
itself. 

431 



432 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

satisfactory-to the Scotch Presbyterians than it was to the English 
Puritans. The clergy, the people, and even the nobles were 
against this set form of service, both on religious grounds, because 
it was too much like the Roman Catholic form, and on political 
grounds, because it seemed like forcing English customs upon 
them. The new service was read for the first time in St. Giles's 
church in Edinburgh in July, 1637. A riot immediately broke 
out. A woman stood up and threw her stool at the head of the 
minister, and others thronged out of the church. There was much 
excitement throughout the country, and within the next year a 
pledge called the " National Covenant " was signed widely through 
all Scotland. Every one who signed it promised to try by all 
lawful means to restore the purity and liberty of the gospel as it 
had been before the recent changes. 

Charles, in order to regain the good will of his Scotch subjects, 
withdrew the prayer book and promised to limit the powers of the 
bishops. In the fall of 1638, however, a great Scotch church 
assembly, consisting partly of clergymen, partly of laymen, gath- 
ered at Edinburgh and claimed the power to regulate all religious 
matters for the country. The commissioner representing the king 
refused to allow them to exercise such independent functions, and 
finally in the name of the king dissolved the assembly. They 
refused to be dissolved and proceeded with their work, abolished 
episcopacy, and reintroduced presbyterianism. 

This refusal to obey the king's representative, and the subse- 
quent interference in the organization of the church without royal 
authorization, amounted practically to rebellion. Charles felt it 
necessary to go up to Scotland with an army to reduce the assem- 
bly to obedience. He gathered forces as best he could and 
marched northward. When he got to the Scotch border he found 
that the assembly had itself raised an army stronger than his own. 
He was very short of funds and found it almost impossible to 
keep together even the troops he had. He therefore entered into 
a treaty with the Scots, agreeing that all the points in dispute 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 433 

should be settled in a parliament and church assembly to be held 
in Edinburgh. Even after both bodies had met and approved of 
the abolition of episcopacy, Charles refused to give way, ordered 
assembly and parliament dissolved, and prepared for war against 
his subjects in Scotland. These two contests of 1639 and 1640 
are often called the " Bishops' Wars," because they were fought 
for the sake of the Scotch bishops. 

386. The Short Parliament. — Charles had to have more money 
if he was to raise an efficient army. Money could be found for 
the ordinary expenses of government, but the only way to meet 
any extraordinary expenditure, such as that for the formation 
and payment of an army, was to get the English parliament to 
authorize additional taxes. At Strafford's advice, therefore, in 
April, 1640, Charles called parliament for the first time for eleven 
years, hoping that it would grant the necessary funds and not 
stir up any other questions. The moment the representatives of 
the English people met after their long intermission, Pym laid 
before the House of Commons a statement of the popular griev- 
ances. They discussed these at the same time they were dis-. 
cussing the grant of money, and they also prepared to advise 
Charles to give up the war against the Scotch altogether. Rather 
than allow them to do this he dissolved parliament after it had 
been sitting only three weeks and before it had completed any 
one action. It is usually known as the " Short Parliament." 

The king was now well-nigh desperate. The rebellious Scotch 
army was threatening the English border and the treasury was 
empty. Charles had men pressed into military service from all 
over England, bought the cargoes of pepper just brought from 
India on the East India Company's ships, promising to pay for 
it later, but selling it immediately at less than cost price so as 
to get ready money. With an army thus obtained he marched 
northward and met the Scotch army on the English side of the 
border in Yorkshire. But the English army did not want to beat 
the Scots, and it was evidently impossible to make them fight 



434 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

against those with whose principles they sympathized. Negotia- 
tions therefore were opened with them. The Scotch army was 
allowed to remain in the two northern counties until a final 
settlement should be made of the questions in dispute, and 
were promised ^850 a day for their expenses if they would not 
march any farther. 

The king then tried the plan of summoning a Great Council 
to meet at York, to consist of noblemen only. But, as his money 
was entirely exhausted, the nobles had no advice to offer him 
except that he should summon a full parliament. Charles was 
now at the end of his rope. He had no money to buy off 
the Scotch army. He could not allow them to march as they 
would through England. He could not safely let himself fall into 
their hands. There was nothing to do except to take the advice 
given him, — to call parliament and to hope for the best from 
it when it met. 

387. The Long Parliament. — At the king's summons, there- 
fore, the body which was to be known as the " Long Parliament " 
met November 3, 1640. All those who had opposed the king 
in the recent Short Parliament and most of the surviving men of 
prominence from the earlier parliaments were elected, and it was 
made up, therefore, almost entirely of men opposed to the king's 
policy. Pym, a veteran opponent, was its most influential leader. 
John Hampden was a member, as was also another country gentle- 
man, — then unknown but destined to future greatness, — Oliver 
Cromwell. The circumstances under which parliament now met 
were very different from those under which its predecessors had 
been called. Even the Short Parliament which had met in the 
spring was felt to be only an experiment to be dissolved immedi- 
ately if it did not show itself obedient to the king, as actually 
happened. Now every one felt that the king had had his turn, 
and that parliament was at last to have its opportunity. Per- 
sonal government had been tried and found wanting, and limited 
monarchy was to be reintroduced. From the moment of its first 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 435 

meeting parliament took things into its own hands, and acted 
with the vigor, assertiveness, and unanimity of a body which feels 
that it has for the first time the real power and responsibility of 
government. 

Its tone towards the king was respectful but no longer submis- 
sive. It did not hesitate for a moment to carry out any of its wishes 
because of the known objections of the king. Its meeting began 
a new period in English history. For the next twenty years, from 
1640 to 1660, with some interruptions, parliament either actually 
or in the background controlled the course of English affairs, just 
as Charles had been in control of them for the preceding fifteen 
years. Nor has it ever since fallen to the insignificance of the 
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. 

388. Execution of Strafford. — Strafford, Laud, and some of 
the other ministers were immediately ordered by parliament to 
be arrested with a view to impeachment. The first two were 
imprisoned in the Tower, the others escaped to the continent. 
Strafford was then impeached by the House of Commons on the 
charge of high treason. He had been dictatorial and had advised 
the king to do many despotic acts. Yet it was hard to show that 
he had done anything treasonable. He was very generally believed 
to have advised the king to bring an army from Ireland to force 
his will on the English people, but of this there was no certain 
evidence. Yet the parliamentary leaders felt that Strafford was 
the soul of royal absolutism, and that he must be removed if there 
was to be any real change in the king's system of government. 
For fear of acquittal the impeachment was therefore changed into 
a bill of attainder, 1 which the House of Lords would probably be 

1 In an impeachment the proceedings are in the nature of a judicial trial, 
the House of Commons being the prosecutors, and the House of Lords the 
judges or jury. A bill of attainder is a legislative act consisting of a bill 
carried through the two houses successively, and only requiring general 
argument, not specific proof of specific charges.' The danger of injustice 
from it has led to its prohibition by the Constitution of the United States. 



436 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

willing to pass. This plan was successful, and the bill of attainder 
was passed and brought to the king to be signed. 

Charles was in a very difficult position. He had promised 
Strafford when parliament met that not a hair of his head should 
be touched, not a penny of his property seized. Nevertheless it 
was almost impossible for him to refuse anything which parlia- 
ment demanded, for if he did parliament would not grant money 
to pay for the support of the Scotch army, and if the Scotch army 
was not paid it would continue its march southward. There 
were still more personal reasons why the king must yield. The 
queen had formed a plan to bring a foreign army and foreign 
money over to coerce parliament, and when this did not succeed 
she tried to get the English army which had lately been in the 
north to come down and put its power at the disposal of the king. 
When this became known she was threatened by a mob that 
gathered around the palace of Whitehall. Charles, worn out 
and fearing for the queen's life, gave way and signed an order 
empowering commissioners to give his approval to the bill of 
attainder against Strafford. Charles had already made an un- 
successful attempt to seize the Tower to release him by force, 
and now begged parliament fruitlessly to substitute imprisonment 
for life for his execution. " Put not your trust in princes," 
was the comment of the great minister, although he had himself 
written to Charles that he would willingly forgive him his death 
if it would lead to better times. He was beheaded on May 
12, 1 64 1. Laud was kept in imprisonment in the Tower for 
four years, until, at a time when feeling had become still more 
embittered, he also was condemned and executed under a bill of 
attainder. 

389. Constitutional Reform. — Parliament now protected its 
position by passing a bill providing that it should not be dissolved 
without its own consent. This the king reluctantly signed, and 
thus divested himself in this case of the power which he and all 
his predecessors had possessed of bringing a session of parliament 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 437 

to an end when they wished. A bill, known as the "Triennial 
Act," was passed providing that parliament should meet every 
three years, even if the king should not call it. 

Next a series of acts was passed introducing constitutional 
reforms which had been suggested by recent experiences. The 
Court of Star Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the 
Council of the North, and a somewhat similar body, the Court of 
the Marches of Wales, were abolished altogether. The collection 
of ship money was declared to be illegal, and acts were passed 
prohibiting the levy of tonnage and poundage or of other customs 
duties without the consent of parliament. Fines for not taking 
up knighthood and for encroachments on the forests were also 
prohibited. All these measures were passed in the years 1640 
and 1 64 1. To all of them Charles affixed his signature officially 
and formally if reluctantly. They became therefore the law of 
the land and in most cases have ever since remained so. It was 
worth parliament's while to be suspended for eleven years to 
obtain such a complete victory for its principles at the end of the 
period. The whole system of personal and despotic government 
by the king seemed to be destroyed. Indeed parliament had 
gone one step farther and introduced into the government a 
degree of parliamentary control which was much more of an 
innovation than anything which the king had done. It is hard 
to see how any king could now carry on the government without 
frequently calling parliament and without taking its advice in all 
the main lines of his administration. So much having been 
accomplished, the necessary appropriations and negotiations were 
carried through for satisfying the Scotch army and inducing it to 
leave England, and for dissolving the temporary army which the 
king had collected in the north. The original occasion for the 
calling of parliament and the most pressing grievances had alike 
been attended to. 

390. The Grand Remonstrance Unfortunately matters could 

not stop just there. New difficulties were looming up in the 



438 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

midst of all these victories of parliament. One was the fear that 
Charles would in some way get control of an army and forcibly 
dissolve parliament and reverse all its actions. The other was 
the fact that the burning religious questions had not yet been 
taken up, and as soon as they were it was practically certain that 
parliament itself would divide into parties instead of acting unan- 
imously as it had done on constitutional questions. In view of 
the first possibility, a forcible dissolution, the leaders of parlia- 
ment drew up a long document known as the " Grand Remon- 
strance," which they planned should be their justification in the 
eyes of the nation for their past actions and future plans. They 
hoped that by appealing to the opinion of the country they could 
disarm any attempts of the king to take revenge for their action 
in the future. The Remonstrance stated one by one with a great 
deal of boldness, but with a great deal of exaggeration, all the 
crimes and wrongdoings which could be charged to Charles since 
the beginning of his reign, proposed radical reforms to prevent 
their recurrence, and ordered the document printed and circu- 
lated among the people. It was carried only after sharp debates 
and even then with but a small majority. 

391. The Religious Question. — In the debates connected with 
the Remonstrance and on many other occasions the religious 
question came up. The claims of the established church had 
been as much a source of dissatisfaction during the personal gov- 
ernment of Charles, when acting under the advice of Laud, as 
any of the other matters now disposed of had been. Some corre- 
sponding action must therefore be taken upon the laws governing 
religion. A party composed of moderate men, who wanted only 
religious liberty, proposed simply that the powers of the bishops 
should be limited and a few reforms introduced. They were 
perfectly willing still to leave the general oversight of the church 
to the king and did not wish any fundamental changes. The 
strongly Puritan party, however, who had been clamoring for 
changes ever since Elizabeth's time, wanted episcopacy abolished 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 439 

entirely and all religious questions referred for settlement to an 
assembly of clergymen to be appointed by parliament. It was 
easy to see what such an assembly would do. It would surely 
adopt presbyterianism, abolish the prayer book, and make the 
whole church of England rigidly Puritan. In the meantime, 
before any settled plan was adopted, attacks were made upon 
the bishops. The House of Commons passed an act providing 
for the removal of the bishops from the House of Lords, but the 
latter defeated this on the ground that each house should be left 
to decide on its own membership. Then the Commons im- 
peached as traitors and placed in custody twelve of the bishops 
who had questioned the legality of actions taken by the House of 
Lords while they were absent. A petition signed by fifteen thou- 
sand citizens of London was read in parliament, asking for the 
abolition of episcopacy "root and branch." On the basis of this 
petition a bill was introduced, called the " Root and Branch Bill," 
providing for the entire abolition of the episcopal system, but it 
received much opposition and was soon withdrawn. In the coun- 
try at large there was a rain of pamphlets for and against changes 
in the church. 

392. The Irish Rebellion. — While religious questions were thus 
dividing parties in parliament, news suddenly came that a great 
rebellion had broken out in Ireland October 23, 1641. The 
native Irish had risen against the English and Scotch settlers in 
Ulster, and in fact against the whole English government of Ire- 
land. The most terrible barbarities occurred. One story after 
another reached England of the slaughter of the English colonists, 
men, women, and children, and of their unspeakable sufferings. 
It was commonly believed that twenty or thirty thousand had 
been killed, though of course this was a greatly exaggerated esti- 
mate. A cry of vengeance for their fellow countrymen in Ireland 
went up from all England. This introduced a new difficulty. 
Parliament was no more willing than the king to see Ireland slip 
from the control of England, and wanted besides to punish the 



440 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Irish as Roman Catholics. An army must be raised and sent to 
Ireland. It would of course be in the hands of the king and 
would remain in his hands after the rebellion was crushed. What 
would prevent him from using it to dissolve parliament, after which 
he could withdraw the reforms which had lately been granted ? 

The king, anxious for revenge for the execution of Strafford, 
resenting the appeal to the people in the Grand Remonstrance, 
recognizing that parliament was not so unanimous as it had been 
at first, and looking forward to having an army soon at his back, 
began to feel that he might resist parliament and immediately 
took a higher tone in his intercourse with it. Thoughtful men 
realized that no real agreement between king and parliament had 
yet been reached. Although Charles had given way in the main 
points, disputes had been continual and bitter, and a reaction was 
always possible. 

Charles had, moreover, obtained a weapon which he thought 
he could use against the leaders in parliament. He thought he 
had found evidence indicating that the Scotch army, when it 
invaded England in 1640, had actually been invited to come 
by Pym, Hampden, and some others who were now prominent 
members of parliament. This, if true, would make them guilty 
of treason, and he therefore took the unusual procedure of order- 
ing the attorney-general to impeach them as traitors. 

393. Attempted Seizure of the Five Members But the king 

was not willing to let the case take its ordinary course. In January, 
1642, he took some five hundred armed men with him, went to the 
parliament house, stationed the soldiers outside, and then him- 
self strode into the House of Commons and declared that he had 
come to arrest five traitors. Not seeing them he called upon the 
speaker to point out to him the men whose names he mentioned. 
No one of the privileges of parliament was more dear to its heart 
than its freedom from the intrusion of the king. When the king 
wished to address the House of Commons it was the invariable 
custom that he should sit on his throne in the House of Lords and. 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 441 

have the Commons summoned before him there. In origin this 
was of course a form of respect. But in the course of time the 
custom had served to protect the Commons from intrusion and to 
guarantee their independence of action. 

By coming in their midst in this rough and informal way the 
king was therefore acting most offensively and imprudently. In 
answer to the king's question as to where the desired members 
were, the speaker, Lenthall, though he knelt before the king, 
boldly replied, " May it please your majesty, I have neither eyes 
to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this house is 
pleased to direct me." As a matter of fact the five members had 
learned of their probable arrest and had taken refuge in the city 
of London, four miles from where parliament was sitting at West- 
minster. Failing to find them the king remarked, " The birds have 
flown," and in some embarrassment hastened out of the house. 

The dispute between king and parliament now became more 
bitter. The House of Commons moved for a few days to 
London, professing fear that the king was going to attack them 
through their leaders. Although the city now extends over such 
a great area that Westminster is only one part of it, they were 
then separate cities, four miles apart, with the village of Charing 
Cross halfway between them. The Thames, however, made a con- 
venient highway on which barges were continually going to and fro. 
The citizens of London welcomed, supported, and encouraged 
parliament, and the militia of the city turned out for its protec- 
tion. A few days afterwards the king also left Westminster and 
went northward to Yorkshire, carrying on his negotiations with 
parliament by letter. The queen went to France, taking with her 
the crown jewels, which she planned to sell in case there should 
be an opportunity to obtain an army by the expenditure of money. 

394. The Militia. — Both king and parliament felt that the 
stage of peaceful debate, and even of embittered dispute, was fast 
passing away, and that unless one or the other gave way entirely 
fighting would soon follow. As neither king nor parliament was 



442 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

now likely to yield, there was nothing left but for each party to 
prepare for war. 

There was no standing army in England. The king had a 
few guards, there were some hundreds of soldiers kept in garri- 
son at four or five castles, and there was a small amount of war 
material stored here and there in the royal castles. But the 
only organized body of soldiery was the militia, or trained bands. 
These were much like the present militia of England or the United 
States. They comprised certain men who came out for awhile 
every year for drill and then returned to their ordinary occupa- 
tions. Both houses of parliament united in passing a bill, which 
they could hardly have expected the king to sign, putting the con- 
trol of the trained bands when called out in the hands of a gen- 
eral appointed by parliament. To this the king promptly and 
harshly refused to agree. Then the House of Lords united with 
the House of Commons in ordering on their own responsibility 
that the country should be put in a state of defense, and appointed 
a lord lieutenant of each county to take charge of this defense. 
Charles, on the other hand, with a group of armed followers rode 
to Hull in Yorkshire, where the arms and ammunition which had 
been provided for the Scottish war were stored, and demanded 
possession of them. The commander, Sir John Hotham, who had 
been placed in charge of that castle by parliament, refused to 
admit the king, drew up the drawbridge, and shut the gates. 

Charles declared Hotham a traitor, rode southward to Not- 
tingham, and there on August 22, 1642, in the castle yard, set 
up the royal standard and called on all loyal Englishmen to 
gather to its defense against a rebellious parliament. Parliament 
appointed one of the members of the House of Lords, the earl 
of Essex, general of its forces and proceeded to organize an 
army and get control of the navy. 

395. The Civil War. — This was the beginning of civil war. 
Generally speaking the northern and western parts of the coun- 
try took the side of the king, the southern and eastern the side 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 



443 



of parliament. Jf a line were drawn roughly from the mouth of 
the Humber River southwestward to the mouth of the Severn, 
most of the country to the northwest of this would be royalist, 
that to the southeast parliamentarian. Most of the nobles, 
wealthier gentry, and higher churchmen were royalist, the middle 
classes were parliamentarian. The more thinly settled districts, 
a few of the large residence towns, and most of the smaller coun- 
try towns were in favor of the king, while London and other 
manufacturing and commercial towns were strongly in favor of 
parliament. There were of course many exceptions to these 
divisions. In general it may be said that the more advanced, 
thoughtful, and active-minded classes and localities were parlia- 
mentarian, the more conservative royalist. 

Something more than a majority of members of the House of 
Lords and a considerable number of the Commons went to join 
the king at Nottingham. Those who took the king's side were 
called " Cavaliers " ; the parliamentary army were known as 
" Roundheads." These party names had arisen during the period 
of dispute while the king was still at Whitehall palace in West- 
minster. The courtiers in his service there were called " cava- 
liers," or soldiers, a term of reproach suggesting recklessness of 
life and manners. They in turn called the Puritan tradesmen and 
apprentices who made up the mobs which gathered around the 
parliament house "roundheads," because they wore their hair cut 
short instead of allowing it to fall in long curls on the neck, as 
wasjhe fashion of the time among the upper classes. 
J The details of the war cannot of course be given here. There 
were many skirmishes and sieges in various parts of the country.. 
At first the king tried to push right to London to end the war at 
a blow, but the hard-fought battle of Edgehill * and the solid front 

1 Soon after this battle Hampden was killed in a skirmish, and the same 
year Pym died. Falkland, one of the early reformers who had, though with 
much reluctance, taken the king's side, was killed at the battle of Newbury, 
also in the same year, 1643. 



444 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

shown by the trained bands of London as they marched out from 
the city forced him to withdraw to Oxford and lose the best 
opportunity of the war. 

The fighting, however, for some time went pretty steadily in 
favor of the king. He organized three armies, one in the north, 
one in the west, and one with Oxford as its headquarters. His 
plan was for the first two of these to advance southward and east- 
ward to the Thames below London, cutting off its commerce, while 
he should with the third dash again upon the capital from the 
northwest. There was, however, so much besieging of parliamen- 
tary towns, fighting of parliamentary armies, and cutting through 
of districts held by parliamentary troops that this policy could never 
be thoroughly carried out, even though the royal army was usually 
successful in the engagements. 

396. The Solemn League and Covenant. — Parliament soon 
entered into a treaty with the Scots, who were already on the 
verge of renewed rebellion. The treaty was known as the " Solemn 
League and Covenant," and was an agreement entered into by 
the Scottish and English parliaments and ordered to be sworn to 
by all Scotchmen and Englishmen. All those who signed it agreed 
to bring the religion of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the 
same form, which should be " according to the word of God and 
the example of the best reformed churches." Money was sent by 
the English parliament to Scotland, and a Scotch army was soon 
organized and marched southward to help the parliamentary army 
against the king. A " Committee of both' Kingdoms " was also 
appointed by the two parliaments to take charge of the war. 

397. Oliver Cromwell. — The result of this alliance was seen 
soon afterwards. In the battle of Marston Moor, fought July 2, 
1644, the royalists were badly defeated by the united English and 
Scotch armies. The parliamentary officer who was in command 
of the cavalry, and who really did most to win this battle, was a 
man who from this time onward began to come into greater 
prominence, — Oliver Cromwell. He was a member of the House 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 



445 



of Commons, representing the town of Cambridge. He had 
taken an active though scarcely a leading part in all the actions 
by which the king had been forced to grant reforms. He had 
early volunteered for military duty and had organized a cavalry 
troop, known as the "Ironsides," which became famous for its dis- 
cipline, fighting ability, and constant success. Cromwell had next 
been made second in command of a portion of the parliamentary 
army formed by a group of the eastern counties, known as the 
" Eastern Association." He was an earnest Puritan and drew men 
into his regiment who were equally religious and earnest. He be- 
lieved the only way to meet the spirit and courage of the gentry 
in the king's army was to awaken religious enthusiasm and extend 
religious discipline among the men fighting on the parliament's 
side. At Marston Moor, after defeating with his cavalry those 
immediately opposed to him, he wheeled around and attacked 
the remaining part of the king's forces on the flank, threw them 
into confusion, and won the first important parliamentary victory. 
398. Presbyterianism. — By the summer of 1644, although the 
tide of war seemed to be ..turning in favor of parliament, the major- 
ity of that body and many of the leaders of its army were begin- 
ning to lose their interest in the struggle and to look forward to 
some kind of a compromise with the king. This was due to the 
course of religious change. Parliament had carried out its plan 
of calling an assembly of Puritan clergymen to meet at Westmin- 
ster whose duty it should be to draw up regulations for the form 
of government, ceremonies, and doctrines of the English church. 
During its deliberations the Solemn League and Covenant was 
entered into with Scotland and went far to pledge the English 
parliament to introduce presbyterianism. The Westminster 
Assembly declared against episcopacy, and soon an ordinance 1 

1 As the king would not now sign any bills passed by parliament, they 
could not properly be called laws. The term " ordinances " was therefore 
applied to resolutions carried through both houses of parliament and put 
into force by their authority alone, without the king's signature. 



446 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

was passed by the two houses of parliament making the English 
church presbyterian in its organization. 

There were no longer any bishops. Each minister had much 
power over his own congregation, though a still higher power 
rested in the presbytery or organization of the ministers and elders 
of each district, and all were alike subject to the General Assembly 
of the church. The doctrines of the church were drawn up in the 
form of the Westminster Confession, still the rule of faith in Pres- 
byterian churches. The services and ceremonies were made much 
simpler than they had been. The use of the book of common 
prayer was forbidden and a book of general directions for church 
worship issued. Altars and communion rails were removed from 
the churches, images and crucifixes destroyed, and such of the 
stained glass and other mediaeval religious monuments as had not 
already been destroyed by the religious fanatics of the early 
Reformation were now sacrificed almost without exception. 

399. The Independents. — But in all this there was no religious 
freedom or toleration. It simply established the Presbyterian 
organization and doctrine in place of the regulations of the old 
established church as Laud had enforced them. Presbyteries 
took the place of the bishops; the Assembly took the place of 
the king and High Commission. One party of the Puritans and 
of parliament had imposed their system upon all others, whether 
the latter agreed with them or not. 

Those who did not agree with them were scarcely in a minority, 
for it was a time when men were coming to have many different 
beliefs in religious matters. This was the period when the founda- 
tions of the later religious sects — Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians, 
and others — were being laid. The belief was growing that reli- 
gion was not a matter on which men's minds should be forced. 
" Brethren, in things of the mind we look for no compulsion but 
that of light and reason," said Cromwell. Milton pleaded for 
toleration in religious belief. Many men claimed the right to be 
bound to no religious belief at all. As one soldier said, " If I 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 4^7 

should worship the sun or moon, like the Persians, or the pewter 
pot on the table, nobody has anything to do with it." 

There was no more hope for such liberty of conscience under 
presbyterianism than under episcopacy or uoder the papacy. 
Those who wished this liberty saw no way of attaining it except 
to allow each congregation to organize itself as it saw fit. They 
were therefore called " Independents." To independency were 
attracted not only those men whose broad views were repelled by 
the idea of religious compulsion, but many of the officers of the 
army, who, like Cromwell, wished to use and promote a good sol- 
dier no matter what his religious beliefs might be. 

400. The New Model Army. — The two branches of the Puri- 
tans, Presbyterians and Independents, were therefore as much in 
opposition to each other as churchmen and Puritans had formerly 
been. Moreover, the Presbyterians had obtained all the politi- 
cal and religious reforms they wanted, and they thought the king 
might be induced to acknowledge the system which had now been 
introduced. They dreaded, besides, the growing power and claims 
of the Independents. They had become a conservative party, and 
they were anxious to bring the war to an end and to come to 
terms with the king. Several of the higher officers of the army 
belonged to this party and did not want to push the king too hard 
or to subject him to any further defeat. The Presbyterians were 
therefore a peace party. 

The Independents, on the other hand, v ere a war party. They 
were not content to rest under Presbyterian domination in church 
matters and felt that in political matters the work was only half 
done, — that no terms could be safely made with Charles so long 
as he had an army in the field. They wished to continue the war 
until the king was completely defeated. To this party Cromwell 
belonged, and he complained bitterly of the inactivity of the 
older parliamentary generals. There were enough men of the same 
opinion in parliament to carry out a change. By their efforts a 
new army was constructed, called the " New Model," to take 



448 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the place of the existing parliamentary army. It was somewhat 
smaller than the old army, but was more completely under the 
control of parliament, more regularly paid, and better equipped. 
A change of officers was brought about by the passage of the 
" Self-denying Ordinance," by which every member of either 
house must within forty days lay down any military command 
which he held. The old officers resigned and 
were thanked by parliament for their services. 
Sir Thomas Fairfax became commander in 
chief, and within a short time, notwithstand- 
ing his membership in parliament, Cromwell 
was made second in command with the title 
" Lieutenant General." 

401. Defeat of the King at Naseby. — Inde- 
pendents were more numerous in the New 
Model army and it was filled with a new vigor 
and enterprise. It soon showed what it could 
do. After a number of minor engagements 
a great battle was fought at Naseby, June 14, 
1645. The king's army was scattered and the 
king himself driven into flight accompanied 
only by a small body of horsemen. Cromwell 
)oden Figure of an again had the prm cipal part in the victory, 
icer o n an ry ^j most ag j n j ur i ous to the king as the loss of 
of the New Model J ° 

Ar the battle was the capture by the parliamentary 

army of his private cabinet containing copies 
of the letters he had recently written to the queen. These showed 
that while negotiating with parliament he was planning to bring 
a foreign army into England, and that no promises which he had 
made could be depended upon. The war went on for some months 
longer, but it all went one way now. In almost every battle the 
New Model army was victorious ; one after another they captured 
the castles, forts, and fortified country houses held for the king, 
till there was no organized royalist army in the field, and Charles 




GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 449 

at his headquarters in Oxford had no choice but to surrender in 
some form. He chose to give himself up to the Scotch army, 
and rode into their lines in May, 1646. Soon afterwards the Scots 
handed the king over to commissioners representing the English 
parliament, by whose order he was held in honorable imprison- 
ment at Holmby House, Northamptonshire. The Scotch army 
had its expenses paid by the English parliament and marched 
back to Scotland. 

402. Negotiations with the King. — From the time of Charles's 
surrender a continuous series of negotiations was carried on 
between the king and parliament. Plan after plan was proposed 
by one side or the other, according to which the king should be 
•restored to the throne and guarantees be given for the Presby- 
terian organization of the church and the liberties of parliament. 
But one after another the plans were refused either by the king 
or parliament. As a matter of fact Charles was always hoping 
that something would turn up to prevent the necessity for his 
giving way. He entered into various secret negotiations with the 
Scots, the Irish, the French, and others, and at the very time 
he professed to be negotiating with parliament as to a plan for 
reestablishing the government he was arranging to bring in a 
foreign army to overthrow it. 

Charles had never been a man on whose public faith any reli- 
ance could be placed. At the very outset of his reign he had 
broken the promises of his marriage treaty with the French. 
When he signed the Petition of Right he had not intended to 
keep it. When he signed the bill providing that parliament 
should not be dissolved except by its own consent he intended 
to dissolve it by force as soon as he got an army. The duplicity 
of his nature was made more evident by the disclosures of the 
cabinet captured at Naseby. The full untrustworthiness of his 
character came out still more strongly in these negotiations, and 
it seemed impossible to bind him by any conditions which he would 
be likely to keep. 



450 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

403. The Second Civil War. — During these discussions the 
hostility between the Presbyterians and the Independents was 
approaching a culmination. The former had a majority in parlia- 
ment, the latter in the army. The Presbyterian majority in par- 
liament were willing to agree to almost any terms with the king 
in order to preserve the settlement which they thought they had 
reached. They dreaded the Independents more than they did 
the king. The Independents in parliament and in the army, on 
the other hand, had not yet gained the liberty of conscience which 
they wanted, and were not willing to see the king put back into 
power with so little restriction. Many of them also were men who 
had risen lately from lower positions and had ideas of more demo- 
cratic government than the more aristocratic Presbyterians who- 
made up the majority in parliament. The officers of the army 
met in a council and discussed all these questions, and even the 
common soldiers elected representatives from each company, 
known as " agitators " or agents, who met and consulted on things 
of interest to the army. Parliament and the army were therefore 
in fatal opposition. 

The war being over, parliament tried to disband the army, but 
would not pay the soldiers the arrears of their wages and refused 
to pass an act of indemnity freeing them from prosecution for acts 
done in war time. The army therefore, June 4, 1647, refused to 
be disbanded, and issued a declaration of its intention to hold 
together until a permanent peace and satisfactory settlement of 
the government should be reached. Cromwell during this time 
occupied a midway position. He was a member of parliament 
and at the same time the idolized general of the army. He tried 
his best to arrange terms which would satisfy king, parliament, and 
army, but in vain. The army became so suspicious of parliament 
that a detachment of troops was sent to take Charles from the 
possession of the parliamentary commissioners and retain him in 
the custody of the army. He was kept successively at Newmar- 
ket, Hampton Court, Carisbrooke on the Isle of Wight, and other 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 451 

places. The army then sent to parliament a complaint against 
eleven of its most prominent members on the Presbyterian side, 
and at the same time dispatched a body of troops to Westminster 
and London, nominally to keep order. The accused members fled 
to the continent. In June and July, 1648, feeling became so 
intense that risings in favor of the king took place in Kent, 
Essex, Surrey, Wales, and Scotland, and Cromwell and his gen- 
erals had, after two years of peace, a second civil war on their 
hands. A series of short campaigns by the veteran army, how- 
ever, soon put down these risings. 

404. Pride's Purge. — When parliament still continued to nego- 
tiate with the king, and actually passed a resolution of recon- 
ciliation with him, the army finally lost all patience. General 
Cromwell and the other leading officers who were in the vicinity 
rode into London, December 6, 1648, and a body of soldiers 
under a colonel named Pride was stationed at the door and kept 
out all members of the House of Commons who were known 
to be favorable to the king. This act, by which one hundred 
and forty-three Presbyterian members were excluded, is usually 
described as "Pride's Purge," and of course resulted in the Inde- 
pendents having a majority in the House of Commons. The 
lords had long ceased to exert any great influence on proceed- 
ings. This remnant of the Long Parliament, known as the 
" Rump," 1 was no more humble because of its reduced numbers 
and dependence on the army. Within a month its Independent 
majority declared themselves to be the supreme power in Eng- 
land, since they had been elected by and represented the people. 

405. The Trial and Execution of the King. — They proceeded 
to appoint a "High Court of Justice," consisting of one hundred 
and thirty-five men, to try the king for high treason to the 
nation. Many of these refused to serve, but some sixty attended 
in Westminster Hall and the king was there brought to trial. 
He refused to plead, on the ground that no court could try the 

1 Because it was the " sitting part " of parliament. 



452 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



king. Nevertheless, after some days of formal testimony and dis- 
cussion he was declared guilty of being a " tyrant, traitor, mur- 
derer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation," and 
ordered to be executed. On January 30, 1649, he was led through 
a window of his palace of Whitehall to the scaffold and there in 
the sight of the people beheaded. The House of Commons and 
the High Court of Justice, in their condemnation and execution 
of the king, clung to the forms of law wherever they were able, 
and strove to give to the whole occurrence the appearance of 

legality ; but their 
action was in real- 
ity a part of the 
war. The forms 
which they fol- 
lowed so scrupu- 
lously were never 
intended to be 
used for any such 
purpose, and what 
the leaders were 
doing was justifi- 
able not because 
the king was guilty 



Ml 




ffey, 



— t 



1 !"!^'-J;4. ; ;j 




«ft 



Westminster Hall, where Charles 1 was tried 



of treason but because the period was one of revolution and his 
removal was one of the necessary and unavoidable steps of the 
revolution '. 

406. Feeling in Favor of Charles. — To many, probably to 
most persons in England, however, the beheading of the king 
by warrant of the House of Commons seemed mere murder. 
Through all these later days Charles had behaved with dignity 
and courage. As his fortunes went down his personal demeanor 
rose. The good points of his character — his courage, his self- 
control, his religious faith, his purity of life, his devotion to his 
family and intimate friends — now showed themselves more clearly, 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 453 

while the weak points of his nature — his ignorance and obstinacy, 
his duplicity and untrustworthiness — were no longer prominent. 
A contemporary poet wrote of the death of Charles : 

He nothing common did or mean 
Upon that memorable scene, 

But bowed his comely head 

Down as upon a bed. 

Shortly after the execution there appeared a book called Eikon 
Basilike, 1 which professed to contain the pious soliloquies of the 
king during his last few days. The tone of resignation and con- 
fidence in the justice of his cause shown in this book likewise 
tended to raise the king in the people's estimation. Scarcely, 
therefore, had Charles been put to death before a revulsion of 
feeling set in, and a vast number of people who in the king's 
lifetime had made but languid efforts for his support now mourned 
for him, regretted his defeat and death, and dreaded the punish- 
ment of God for their national sin in allowing his execution. A 
glorified ideal of Charles grew up, now that he was gone, which 
was very different from the unwise, untrustworthy, and unloved 
king who had really lived and reigned. He had a party following 
after his death far more numerous and devoted than he had ever 
had during his lifetime. His eldest son Prince Charles, who was 
then a fugitive, was acknowledged by many in their hearts as the 
rightful holder of the crown, and hailed by his personal compan- 
ions as Charles II. Long afterwards, when the Restoration gave 
him actual possession of the throne, his reign was officially dated 
as beginning on the day of his father's execution. 1 

407. The Commonwealth. — Whatever might oe the feeling of 
the majority of the nation, there was no weakening among the 
men who had led in the war against the king and the moderate 
party. The sixty members of the House of Commons who still 
held their seats considered themselves the sole representatives of 
1 Greek for The King's Image. 



454 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the people of England, since they alone had been chosen in regu- 
lar elections, and continued to call themselves the parliament. 
They acted usually without consulting the House of Lords, and 
quietly ignored even the wishes of the army expressed in a docu- 
ment laid before them by the council of officers. This proposal, 
called the " Agreement of the People," had been drawn up by the 
more radical officers and the common soldiers, and provided for a 
reorganization of the government and the army on a completely 
democratic basis. The more practical men of the army, like 
Cromwell, only partially approved of this scheme, and relying on 
their support the Rump Parliament followed its own plans with- 
out either accepting or rejecting the Agreement of the People. 

It appointed a council of state, consisting of forty-one persons, 
to exercise executive functions. Then the Commons abolished 
the office of king and the House of Lords, declaring the latter to 
be " useless and dangerous." England was thus made a republic, 
and on May 19, 1649, parliament declared "the people of 
England to be a Commonwealth and Free State, by the supreme 
authority of this nation." 1 Back of the council of state and 
parliament in this new government was the army, now a veteran 
and ever-victorious body, under its general Fairfax and its lieu- 
tenant general Cromwell. The army still took great interest 
and part in political affairs through the organization of its officers 
and the representatives of the privates, and for the present at 
least was tolerably well satisfied with the Commonwealth as a 
form of government. Fairfax and Cromwell were made members 
of the council of state and served as a bond between parliament 
and army. 

1 The events here described can perhaps be made more clear by dividing 
them into the following periods : 

1629-1640, Personal Government of Charles I. 
1640-1642, Reforming Period of the Long Parliament. 
1642-1649, the Civil War. 
1649-1653, the Commonwealth. 
1653-1660, the Protectorate. 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 455 

408. Conquest of Ireland and Scotland. — The Commonwealth 
proved to be a vigorous and warlike government. On the exe- 
cution of the king Ireland declared for Charles II, and Catholics 
and royalist Protestants combined to drive out the representatives 
of parliament. An army was sent over in August, 1649, an d Ire- 
land was soon more thoroughly conquered than it had ever been 
before. Cromwell, and after his return to England in 1650, his 
son-in-law, Ireton, who succeeded to the command, carried their 
troops through every part of the island, captured cities, battered 





Seal of the Commonwealth, 1651, showing England and 
Ireland, and Parliament 



down castles,, and confiscated the lands of rebels, Catholics, and 
native Irish. By 1652 Ireland was completely in the power of 
the Commonwealth. 

In 1650 Scotland also acknowledged Prince Charles when he 
came there and agreed to accept the presbyterian system. Par- 
liament ordered the main part of the army to Scotland, and when 
Fairfax refused to go, on the ground that the Scots had a right to 
take Charles for their king if they wanted to, displaced him and 
made Cromwell general of the whole army. In September, 1650, 
he defeated one Scottish army at Dunbar and captured Edinburgh. 
A year later another Scotch army was formed, with which Charles 
pushed into England, hoping for a royalist rising. Cromwell 



456 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

hastened after them, and September 3, 165 1, the anniversary of 
Dunbar, overtook and crushed them at Worcester. The military 
power of the Commonwealth was now complete. No armed 
resistance within the British Isles was any longer possible. 

409. The Navigation Acts and the Dutch War. — Outside of 
England, however, a warlike struggle was drawing on and could 
no longer be avoided. England and Holland were both rising 
commercial nations. English merchants since the time of Eliza- 
beth had been pushing their commerce into every part of the 
world, but everywhere they went they found the Dutch just ahead 
of them. The enterprise and capital of the Dutch merchants, 
the skill of Dutch shipbuilders and sailors, the support given to 
commercial ventures by the government of the Netherlands since 
they had won their independence from Spain had made them the 
most successful traders of Europe. On the continent, in the 
East Indies, in America, and even in England itself, English mer- 
chants had to meet the competition of the Dutch, and as a result 
disputes between the merchants and between the two governments 
were constant. These included political as well as trade disputes. 
The council of state, for instance, tried to force the Dutch gov- 
ernment to expel Prince Charles, who was living in Holland in 
exile, but they were repulsed and protection was still extended to 
the prince. 

In 1 65 1 the English government determined to drive the Dutch 
merchants from that one field of commerce over which it had 
entire control. This was the carrying trade 1 between England and 

1 The carrying trade is the business of taking cargoes from one foreign 
port to another for hire. Dutch vessels, for instance, took goods from the 
East or West Indies or from German, French, and Italian ports to England, 
and then took English goods to these or other countries, just as a modern 
" tramp steamer " seeks a cargo wherever it can be obtained and takes it to 
whatever port it may be consigned to. Vessels engaged in exporting the 
products of their own country and importing goods into their own country 
from abroad are not spoken of as in the carrying trade, but as in the export 
and import trade. 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 457 

other countries. Parliament therefore passed in that year a law 
which has since been known as the first of the " Navigation Acts." 

According to this law, goods from Asia, Africa, or America could 
be brought into England and its possessions only in vessels owned 
and manned by Englishmen. Goods from the continent of Europe 
could be brought into England only in vessels belonging to the 
country in which the goods were produced. This left to the Dutch, 
so far as England was concerned, only the trade in the few prod- 
ucts of their own country which were in demand in England or 
her colonies, depriving them of the profitable business of bring- 
ing goods from distant parts of the world or from other European 
countries to England. The Dutch government protested against 
this law, and the old disputes became at the same time so much 
more bitter that in 1652 war was declared between the two nations. 
A naval struggle followed in which successive battles were waged 
in the Channel and the North Sea, resulting mainly in favor of the 
English. In this naval war Blake, one of the old parliamentary 
generals, though he had probably never been at sea till after he 
was fifty years old, proved himself an even abler naval than a mili- 
tary commander. After two years of war a treaty was signed in 
1654 by which Holland agreed to recognize the Navigation Act 
and to show proper marks of respect to English vessels when they 
were met near the English coasts. 

410. Expulsion of the Long Parliament by Cromwell. — Not- 
withstanding the military and naval successes of the Common- 
wealth, parliament was exceedingly unpopular. In 1653 the Long 
Parliament had been sitting for thirteen years without reelection, 
and there was a widespread feeling that it should now dissolve 
itself and allow new elections to take place. This desire was 
especially strong in the army, and Cromwell and other officers 
frequently urged parliament to give way to new men. Its mem- 
bers were, however, unwilling to dissolve. They believed, and 
rightly, that a freely elected parliament would immediately call in 
Charles II and that the work of the last ten years would be undone. 



458 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



If the republic was to be maintained, some control must be exer- 
cised over the choice of new members. No satisfactory plan was 
settled upon, and in the course of the discussions there were fre- 
quent disputes between parliament and the officers of the army 
almost as bitter as in the old days when there was a Presbyterian 
majority in parliament hostile to the army. 

By this time Oliver Cromwell had become far the most prom- 
inent and influential man in England. His progress from an 
unnoticed member of parliament and a mere colonel of a cavalry 

regiment up to the leadership in the 
army and in the council of state has 
been described. His character and 
abilities were such as inevitably to 
transform this leadership into actual 
rule. Cromwell was tall and im- 
pressive in demeanor, with a coun- 
tenance rugged but of great dignity. 
He was fond of hunting and other 
vigorous exercises, but no less fond 
of music, art, and learning. His re- 
ligious nature was deep and sincere. 
He had an overwhelming sense of 
personal responsibility and of God's 
part in all the events of daily life. 
Each step that he took he believed he was taking because he was 
required to do so by religious duty. His gifts of mind were great. 
In military matters he showed real genius and seldom made a 
mistake. In statesmanship he was somewhat slow and unimagi- 
native but clear-sighted and determined. He was liberal-minded, 
inclined to toleration, and on the whole kindly. He had all the 
powers of mind which the Stuart sovereigns lacked, and if he had 
been born a king, instead of being drawn step by step into the 
position of a revolutionary despot, he might have guided England 
happily through the crisis of the seventeenth century. 




Oliver Cromwell 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 459 

Instead of this it was his unfortunate destiny to destroy the last 
trace of legality in the existing government. Cromwell's mind 
was above all practical. He had come to the conclusion that the 
remaining members of the Long Parliament were incompetent and 
obstinately determined to retain their position and power. When, 
therefore, he was informed one morning that they were about to 
pass a bill for the perpetuation of their own membership in the 
next parliament he lost patience, and, taking some troops with him 
as far as the lobby of the parliament house, went into the session. 
After listening for some time to the debate, he rose, made some 
remarks on the subject, then began to complain of the members, 
and with rising excitement stamped on the floor, called in the 
soldiers, and drove the members out. He ordered the mace to 
be removed by one of the soldiers, saying, "What shall we do 
with this bauble? There, take it away." He then ordered the 
door to be locked, put the key into his pocket, and went back to 
the palace of Whitehall, which as general of the army he was now 
occupying. The council of state was declared by Cromwell to be 
dissolved. 

411. The Little Parliament. — There was very little left now 
in the nature of government. King, House of Lords, House of 
Commons had all been destroyed. There was no authority left 
but that of the army, represented by its officers and especially 
by Cromwell, who was in supreme command of all the military 
forces. Cromwell did not wish to be a dictator. He only wished 
that government should be carried on wisely and efficiently. 
With a provisional council of state, therefore, appointed by him- 
self, he undertook to draw up a list of men who should fill the 
place of parliament. Nominations were asked for from the Inde- 
pendent ministers throughout the country, and one hundred and 
twenty-nine men, known for their religious activity and their 
prominence in the contest with the king and the moderate party, 
were selected and given commissions signed by Cromwell. They 
met a few weeks after the dissolution of the Long Parliament. 



460 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

This assembly is often called the " Little Parliament," or the 
" Nominated Parliament." The fanciful name of one of the 
members from London led to its being called at the time " Praise- 
God Barebone's Parliament." The experiment was not a success. 
Cromwell and the officers tried to keep in the background and 
leave government to the new assembly. But its inexperienced 
and unpractical members introduced radical reforms and changes 
in all directions when the great need of the hour was some degree 
of stability and cessation of change. They aroused discontent and 
distrust everywhere. Among their number and in the army and 
community were all kinds of fanatics and extremists who urged 
them on. The general break-up of old ways had given origin to 
a great number and variety of religious sects, some moderate and 
reasonable, others of the most extravagant character. The begin- 
nings of such societies as the Baptists, Quakers, and Unitarians 
were in this period ; but there were also " Fifth Monarchy Men," 
who believed that the biblical prophecy of the reign of the saints 
was about to be fulfilled, and that they were the saints; " Lev- 
ellers," who wished to institute a system of absolute equality in 
property and political position; " Muggletonians," "Familists," 
and other curious sects. Jews also were now readmitted. 

The actual reforms of the Nominated Parliament were not 
extreme, but there was a constant dread of their becoming so. 
A large part of 'their own number became convinced that they 
could not carry on the government. These men at an early morn- 
ing session on December 11, 1653, carried a resolution dissolving 
their assembly and putting their authority in the hands of the lord 
general, Oliver Cromwell, whom they looked upon as the repre- 
sentative of power, order, and practical moderation. 

412. The Protectorate. — Again there was no government in 
England but that of the general with the army at his back. The 
higher officers with his agreement now drew up a written consti- 
tution for England, known as the " Instrument of Government." 
It gave the principal power to a lord protector, who was of course 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 461 



to be Cromwell himself. He was to be aided and at the same 
time restrained by a council, and a parliament was to meet once 
in every three years. All adherents of the late king were to be 
excluded from voting and from membership in parliament. In 
December, 1653, there was a ceremony in which Cromwell was 
placed in a chair of state and invited to take the office of " Lord 
Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land." Oaths were taken and given, and from this time forward 
much the same ceremony was observed towards him as had been 
shown toward the king. He called himself " Oliver" in all state 
papers and was king in all but name. 1 Two years later he was 
asked by parlia- 
ment to take the 
title of king but 
he refused. In 
fact his real pow- 
ers were more 
than those of a 
king. He was 
a dictator with a 
powerful and de- 
voted army at 
his disposal. However much he may have wanted to restore the 
power of parliament and of the people, he could not do so in 
the confused circumstances of the time without withdrawing from 
affairs altogether. This he would have felt to be a mere aban- 
donment of duty, since he believed in all sincerity that he was 
called and chosen by God for the work in which he was engaged. 
For the remaining five years of his life he was the real ruler of 
England. No government of England was possible just then but 




Seal of the Protectorate, 1653, showing Arms of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and Oliver 
Cromwell 



1 " Noll " and " Old Noll " were nicknames commonly applied to Oliver 
by the royalists. " Crummel " was the popular pronunciation of his name, 
as in the line, 

Oh for an hour of Crummel and the Lord. 



462 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the government of some one man. The struggle of the Long Par- 
liament with the king had developed into a great military conflict 
in which power necessarily came into the hands of the strongest 
party. This party was the army, and Oliver was the soul and 
representative of the army. 

413. Policy of the Protectorate. — In foreign affairs the ensuing 
years formed a period of greatness and brilliant success for Eng- 
land. Cromwell made treaties with the Dutch and the French, 
gaining advantages which neither James nor Charles had been able 
to secure. He forced the French government to spare the Protest- 
ants in Savoy, and secured protection and indemnity for English 
merchants in the Mediterranean. The English fleet became as 
famous and as successful as the army. He made war on Spain and 
the army gained some victories in Europe, while the fleet captured 
the silver vessels from America, destroyed a Spanish fleet, and 
seized Jamaica in the West Indies. 

In England itself, however, there was constant trouble. The 
Protector had frequent quarrels with his parliaments. There was 
much opposition to him both from those who favored the king 
and the old church and from those who wished to introduce a 
more democratic government and still further religious changes. 
More than one plot to murder him was discovered. There was 
also difficulty in raising enough money for the expenses of the 
government now that the country was at war again. To meet 
these difficulties the Protector divided England into eleven mili- 
tary districts, at the head of each of which was placed a major 
general with almost arbitrary powers. In the intervals of the sit- 
ting of parliament, taxation was imposed by the mere will of the 
Protector and council, and collected by the major generals. Thus 
the country was under what was practically a military government, 
which has always been the most hated of all forms of government. 
Notwithstanding the liberal sentiments of Cromwell, the party 
which had brought him into power was a rigidly Puritan party, 
which insisted on ascetic religious customs that bore hardly on 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 463 

the great number of the people. Earnest, therefore, as were the 
efforts and desires of Cromwell and his supporters to give Eng- 
land a good and acceptable government, the hearts of the people 
turned more and more back to the old ways, and it became 
clearer and clearer that the task undertaken by them was a hope- 
less one. 

In the summer of 1658 Oliver sickened and died. He was 
saddened by the apparent failure of his work, by the troubles 
hanging over his country, and by losses in his own family circle. 
His strong religious nature showed itself on his deathbed as at all 
other periods of his life. In one of his last prayers he implored 
favor for the people in these words : " Thou hast made me, though 
very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and 
Thee service ; and many of them have set too high a value upon 
me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. Pardon 
such a desire to trample on the dust of a poor worm, for they are 
Thy people too ; and pardon the folly of this short prayer, even 
for Jesus Christ's sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy 
pleasure. Amen." 

Cromwell was a sincere and devoted laborer for the good of the 
people. His high position and great powers were forced upon 
him by the necessities of the time. He was one of the greatest 
men in English history and one of the greatest military command- 
ers in all history. His funeral took place with great pomp and 
all the ceremonies usually reserved for royalty. He was buried in 
Westminster Abbey in the presence of the highest nobles and the 
representatives of foreign governments. 

414. End of the Protectorate. — If Oliver Cromwell could with 
difficulty fill the office of Protector, it was hardly likely that any 
one else would be more successful. Certainly his son Richard, 
who by his appointment succeeded him, was not able to do so. 
He was neither a Puritan nor a soldier, and after less than a year, 
which was constantly filled with disputes with the army, he found 
his position untenable and abdicated. The Protectorate now 



464 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

practically came to an end and the officers of the army invited 
the survivors of the Long Parliament to come together again. 

There were a few months more of confusion till parliament, 
under pressure from General Monk, head of one division of the 
army, at last agreed to dissolve itself and to leave the destinies 
of England to a new parliament to be freely elected in its place. 

415. Summary of the Period 1640-1660. — Thus the Long 
Parliament — which had been called by Charles in 1640, had 
declared war against him in 1642, put him to death in 1649, 
been itself ejected by Cromwell in 1653, and again restored by 
the army in 1659 — came at last in 1660 to an end, according 
to the act passed in its first year, by its own consent. It had 
begun as a reforming body and within the first year and a half 
of its existence had changed the system of absolute government 
of the Tudors and Stuarts to a strictly limited monarchy. But this 
period of reform had been followed by civil war, by the formation 
of a republic, and finally by its own overthrow and the military 
rule of Cromwell and the army. Now every one knew that the 
new parliament would call back the king. The period of the 
Commonwealth had been a time of great deeds, high ideals, and 
strong feelings, but they had led to no permanent and satisfactory 
settlement of the form of government. The nation was tired 
and sick of military rule and of political change. The people 
wanted to be ruled by civil authority and they wanted a settled 
government. They longed to return to the old established ways 
and institutions that had existed before the feverish excitement 
and rapid changes of the civil war and the Commonwealth. 

General Reading. — Most of this period is covered in full by Gardiner, 
History of England from i6oj to 1642, vols. 9 and 10; History of the Great 
Civil War, 4 vols. ; and History of the Commonwealth, 3 vols. His volume 
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (Epochs of History) is 
the best short work on the period. Green, Short History, chap, viii, sects. 
6-10. Three admirable histories of the civil war and the Commonwealth, 
Morley,- Cromwell ; Roosevelt, Cromwell; and Firth, Cromwell (Heroes 



GREAT REBELLION AND COMMONWEALTH 465 

of the Nations), are given in the form of biographies. Firth, Cromwell's 
Army, is a very interesting book. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and 
Speeches, is a standard work of great importance. Macaulay, Milton. 
Gardiner, Cromwell's Place in History. 

Contemporary Sources. — The documents are very fully given in Gar- 
diner, Select Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1 640-1 660; and almost 
equally so in Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, Nos. 195-220. 
Kendall, Source-Book, Nos. 76-89, includes a number of interesting 
extracts from contemporary writers. Evelyn's Diary is a valuable record 
of a contemporary royalist. The following numbers of the Old South Leaf- 
lets are valuable illustrations for this period : No. 24, The Grand Remon- 
strance ; No. 26, The Agreement of the People ; No. 27, The Instrument of 
Government; No. 61, Pym's Speech against Strafford ; Nos. 28 and 62, 
Two Speeches by Cromwell ; No. 63, MiLTON, A Free Commonwealth. 
Henderson, Sidelights on English History, contains much that is useful 
here, but is large and expensive. Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 280-307. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Scott, Legend of Montrose and Woodstock; 
Shorthouse, John Inglesant ; Mrs. Charles, The Draytons and Daven- 
ants ; Aytoun, Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers ; and Browning, Strafford, 
are fair illustrations of the times. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Trial of Charles, Lee, Source-Book of Eng- 
lish History, Nos. 160-163; (2) the Character of Strafford, Robert 
Browning, Strafford ; (3) Cavalier and Puritan Poetry, Miss Baker and 
Miss Cowan, English History told by English Poets, pp. 317-340; (4) the 
Trial and Execution of Strafford, Green, Short History of the English 
People, chap, viii, sect. 6; (5) the Early Career of Cromwell, ibid., sect. 7 ; 

(6) the Expulsion of the Long Parliament by Cromwell, ibid., sect. 8; 

(7) the Two Parties in the Civil War, Traill, Social England, Vol. IV, 
pp. 218-226; (8) the Military Equipment for the Civil War, ibid., pp. 226- 
239; (9) Women in the Civil War, ibid., pp. 315-320; (10) the New Sects 
of the Commonwealth Period, Gooch, Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth 
Century. 



X 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 
1660-1689 

416. The Declaration of Breda. — Five days after the new par- 
liament met it received a message from Charles, commonly called 
the " Declaration of Breda," because he had signed it at Breda in 
Holland, where he was in exile. In this declaration Charles offered 
a general pardon to all those who had taken part in the rebellion, 
except such as should be specially exempted from pardon by par- 
liament. He also agreed not to disturb the owners of estates con- 
fiscated from royalists, to approve the payment of the arrears of 
wages owed to the soldiers, and to consent to any bill which parlia- 
ment was willing to pass in favor of liberty of conscience. By his 
voluntary acknowledgment of parliamentary powers Charles showed 
that he had given up his father's claim to rule without parliament. 

The declaration was received with universal gratification, and a 
resolution was passed the same day, May 1, 1660, declaring that 
" according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, 
the government is and ought to be by King, Lords, and Com- 
mons." If this were so, the sooner the king came back to take 
part in the government the better. Three weeks afterwards 
Charles II landed at Dover and hastened to London amidst 
general expressions of. welcome. He took up his residence at 
Whitehall palace, swore to observe the Great Charter, the Petition 
of Right, and other important statutes, and gave legal sanction 
to the existing parliament, 1 which had been elected on the sum- 
mons only of the preceding parliament, not of the king. 

1 Such a parliament is called a " convention." 
466 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 467 



_^;r '~r~ 



The new king was just thirty years of age. He was active, 
handsome, and witty. He was quicker and more farseeing than 
his father. On the other hand, he was indolent, pleasure-loving, 
and selfish. He had not his father's sense of duty or his willing- 
ness to make sacrifices for what he thought right. Therefore, 
although he might try to outwit or deceive or neglect parliament, 
if a contest should arise he would be pretty sure to give way where 
his father would have fought to the bitter end. Charles is reported 
to have said that whatever happened he would not go on his trav- 
els again, which could only mean that 
in a trial of strength with parliament he 
would always give way rather than carry 
things to their last extremity. There 
were better reasons for the moderation 
of Charles II than mere indolence. 
Although the Commonwealth had fallen, 
yet no one could ever afterwards forget 
that a king had been resisted, conquered, 
deposed, and executed. Experience had 
proved that, in a final test of strength, 
power was in the hands of parliament. 

417. The Action of Parliament. — The 
Declaration of Breda had mentioned four 

points, — confiscated estates, the army, amnesty, and religion. 
Parliament settled the first three of these promptly. Estates which 
had been actually confiscated from the king and the church were 
returned, but the lands which royalists had been forced to sell 
by the harsh laws of the Commonwealth were confirmed to their 
new purchasers. Many of those who had stood by the king through 
all his ill fortune were bitterly disappointed at not regaining their 
land now that Charles had returned to his own. 

Money was appropriated for the payment of the wages of the 
soldiers, and the army was then disbanded. The return of these 
soldiers of the New Model quietly to their homes, after fifteen 




Charles 



468 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

years of victory and power, shows of what stuff it was made. 
This was an age when armies were often merely licensed ^ plun- 
derers, and to disband an army meant to let loose on the land 
thousands of desperate men. Yet Oliver's soldiers were soon 
absorbed again into the community and known only as good 
tradesmen, artisans, or farmers. 

An act of indemnity or pardon for recent occurrences was 
passed, but with a long list of exceptions. Many men not in- 
cluded in the general pardon were forced to go into exile for the 
rest of their lives. Others were fined and imprisoned, and thir- 
teen " regicides," as those were called who had sat upon the High 
Court of Justice and voted for the death of Charles, were hanged, 
drawn, and quartered with all the old barbarous accompaniments 
of death for treason. The same punishment was also inflicted 
upon Sir Harry Vane, who was not a regicide but had been an in- 
fluential member of the Long Parliament through its whole career. 
An unworthy revenge followed upon even those great men of the 
Commonwealth who were already dead at the time of the Resto- 
ration. The bodies of the great Protector, Ireton, his second in 
command in the army, and Bradshaw, the president of the High 
Court of Justice, all of whom had been buried in Westminster 
Abbey, were dug up, hung in their shrouds, and then thrown into 
a pit outside the abbey. The bodies of Pym, the great orator, 
Blake, the great naval commander, and others were likewise 
removed from the abbey and thrown into the same pit. 

Some of the old subjects of quarrel between king and parlia- 
ment were now settled by abolishing all feudal payments owed to 
the king. To make up for this royal loss of revenue a new tax 
was laid on malt and some other articles of common use, which 
with tonnage and poundage gave a sufficient income to the king 
for all the usual needs of government. The abolition of feudal 
tenures was to the special advantage of the large landowners who 
were represented in parliament. They freed themselves in this 
way from old and vexatious payments to the crown, while the 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 469 

new tax was paid not especially by them but by all classes of the 
people. 

The religious question was a more difficult one, and, notwith- 
standing the king's offer of toleration, was brought no nearer 
settlement than it had been before. The Convention Parliament 
represented those who had suffered from the heavy hand of the 
Puritan parliament and the Puritan army. Therefore although 
many of them, perhaps a majority, were Presbyterians, yet they 
were so anxious to prevent a return to the excesses of the Com- 
monwealth that they were afraid to stand out for religious reforms. 
At first they advocated a plan by which there should be bishops 
with powers much limited by the clergy of the diocese. When the 
Anglicans opposed this they gave way, followed the guidance of 
the Cavaliers, and allowed them to bring back episcopacy and the 
prayer book. 

The next parliament, known as the "Cavalier Parliament," 
which met in 1661, having been elected during the excitement 
of the Restoration, was even more opposed to everything like 
Puritanism or toleration of different sects in the church. 

Various efforts were made outside of parliament to reach a 
settlement of the church which would satisfy both Puritans and 
high churchmen. A conference between certain bishops and 
some of the Presbyterian ministers was held at the Savoy palace, 
similar to that held before James at Hampton Court. Compro- 
mises were discussed but no agreement could be reached. The 
king, who felt attached to the Roman Catholic church and 
later became secretly a member of it, was in favor of general 
toleration for all alike, whether Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians, or members of the new sects. This proposal, 
because it included the sects, was hateful to Presbyterians and 
Episcopalians, and because it included Roman Catholics was 
hateful to all except the few members of that body. All plans 
failed one after another, the majority in parliament was given its 
way, and the church was reestablished in its old form. 



470 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

418. The Dissenters. — In 1661 appointments were made to 
all the old bishoprics, and in 1662 an act of uniformity was 
passed, requiring every clergyman and every schoolmaster to 
express immediately his full consent to everything contained in 
the prayer book. About two thousand ministers resigned their 
positions rather than agree to this requirement. These were 
mostly Presbyterians. They and the congregations who wished to 
worship with them were thus placed in a position practically the 
same as the Independents, Baptists, Quakers, and other new 
sects. They all came, therefore, to be known alike as " Dissent- 
ers," that is to say, such as dissented from the established church. 
The Dissenters would have been satisfied if they had been allowed 
to form congregations and carry on worship in their own way, 
even if they did not have the use of the parish churches or receive 
tithes for the support of their clergy. But even this was not 
allowed. Parliament was afraid to allow the formation of new 
congregations for fear the Dissenters, influenced by their minis- 
ters, might try to reintroduce the Commonwealth. In 1664, there- 
fore, the " Conventicle Act " was passed, which punished any one 
attending a conventicle 1 with penalties increasing with each repe- 
tition of the offense, till in case of a fourth repetition the offender 
was transported to endure seven years' servitude in the West 
Indies. The next year, 1665, still another step was taken in the 
same direction by the passage of the "Five-Mile Act." This 
prohibited the ministers who had lately been turned out of the 
parish churches from coming within five miles of any place where 
they had formerly preached, or of any large town, unless they 
would take an oath declaring that it was not lawful under any 
circumstances to take up arms against the king, and would 
renounce the Solemn League and Covenant. 

1 A conventicle was a gathering for religious worship not in conformity 
with the law. According to this statute it was a gathering where more 
than four persons outside of a household were present, and where some 
other form of service than that of the prayer book was used. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 471 

Another act passed in 1661 led to the repression of the Dis- 
senters by more indirect means. This was what was called the 
"Corporation Act." 1 According to its provisions all who held 
office in any city or town were obliged to renounce the Solemn 
League and Covenant taken in 1643 ; to swear that it was unlaw- 
ful to bear arms against the king; and to attend the sacrament 
of communion as it was given with the rites of the established 
church of England. This put the government of all the towns 
in the hands of church of England men. Since in many of the 
towns the corporation elected the representatives of the town in 
the House of Commons, this also served the purpose of excluding 
Dissenters from future parliaments. 2 

The church of England in its old form was now rapidly regain- 
ing its former power. It was powerful not because it was upheld 
by the king and his ecclesiastical advisers, as under Elizabeth, 
James, and Charles, but because it stood midway between the 
Dissenters on the one hand and the Roman Catholics on the 
other. The first of these groups, the Dissenters of various sects, 
were so numerous and had been so closely connected with the 
rebellion that they were dreaded by moderate men as revolution- 
ists and extremists. The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, 
were so few that the widespread fear lest they should get back 
into power and make England again a Catholic country as we look 
back upon it now seems to have been childish and unreasonable. 
No one could have believed it probable that the great mass of the 
English people would ever again become Roman Catholics. 

1 The word corporation as used in England means the government of a 
town or city ; the body of regularly organized members of a council ; alder- 
men, or whatever other name they are known by in each particulai case. 

2 The four laws which have been here described, sometimes called the 
"Clarendon Code," namely, the Corporation Act of 1661, the Act of Uni- 
formity of 1662, the Conventicle Act of 1664, and the Five-Mile Act of 
1665, deprived Presbyterians, Independents, and several other religious 
bodies of their hard-won privileges and brought them all again under the 
control of the established church. 



472 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

There were, however, two reasons why the people might fear 
the restoration of " popery," as Roman Catholicism was then 
usually called in England. One of these was the attitude of the 
king, who certainly favored the Roman Catholics ; the other was 
the danger from the great Roman Catholic governments on the 
continent, which might at any time send their armies to the help 
of their English co-religionists. 

419. The Declarations of Indulgence. — Early in his reign 
Charles had issued a declaration stating that the laws forbidding 
any other worship than that of the established church would not 
be enforced and that for the time no one would be disturbed in 
his worship if it was peaceable and without public scandal ; but 
parliament had petitioned him to put the laws in force. Never- 
theless Charles, in secrecy and among a small group of his most 
intimate friends, in the year 1669, declared himself a Roman 
Catholic, while his brother James, the heir to the throne, publicly 
acknowledged his conversion to that faith. 

The king was now even more anxious to favor his fellow-religion- 
ists. In 1 67 2 he issued by virtue of his dispensing power x a second 
and more formal " Declaration of Indulgence." This proclamation 
suspended the enforcement of all laws punishing Roman Catholics 
or Dissenters for their failure to conform to the ecclesiastical laws. 



1 The dispensing power or power of dispensation was a right claimed by 
the king to free persons from the necessity of obeying some law. Just as 
the right of pardon allows the king to free a person from punishment for 
some breach of law which he has already committed, so the right of dis- 
pensing would allow him to permit men beforehand to do something which 
was forbidden by the law. Even without the exercise of the dispensing 
power it was possible for the king to do much to shelter the Dissenters 
and mitigate the rigor of the law. Magistrates, sheriffs, jailers, and other 
law officers were servants of the king, and they could not act against his 
wishes. Therefore the Dissenters and the Roman Catholics were not 
severely persecuted in Charles' time, except when, in order to obtain favor 
with parliament, the king found it desirable to conform to its wishes and 
enforce the laws strictly. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 473 

In itself this was a just, liberal, and wise measure ; but in the eyes 
of the country it was an effort on the king's part to restore the 
Roman Catholics to power, and it was certainly against the law. 
Parliament, therefore, protested strongly against the declaration, 
claiming that by it forty laws on the statute book were rendered 
of no effect and that " penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical 
cannot be suspended but by act of parliament." As the king 
was extremely anxious just at this time to keep on good terms 
with parliament he gave way again and reluctantly withdrew the 
Declaration of Indulgence. 

Parliament was not satisfied with this concession but took more 
positive action. In 1673 it passed the "Test Act," a law requir- 
ing that no one should hold any office under the government 
who would not first declare his disbelief in the doctrine of tran- 
substantiation and receive the sacrament of communion accord- 
ing to the rites of the church of England. No Roman Catholic 
could now share in the government of the nation, just as neither 
Roman Catholics nor Dissenters according to the Corporation 
Act could share in the local government. The supremacy of the 
established church was now complete. The entire control of 
ecclesiastical, educational, and charitable organizations was in its 
hands ; it had a strong majority in both houses of parliament ; 
a vast proportion of all offices in the country was occupied by 
its adherents; and it was strengthened and supported in its 
position by the foolish but almost universal dread of the Roman 
Catholics. 

420. Titus Oates and the Popish Plot. — This fear was inten- 
sified by the growing military power and victorious wars of the 
French king. So long as England had a king suspected of being 
a Roman Catholic, and an heir apparent who was known to be 
of that faith, French regiments might be brought in at any time 
to put her religion and her liberties under the yoke. In 1678 
fear was raised to a panic by the revelations made by a certain 
Titus Oates concerning a supposed " Popish Plot." This man 



474 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

took his oath before a London magistrate that he knew of a great 
plot according to which Charles was to be murdered, his brother 
James immediately placed on the throne, a French army landed 
to support him, and the Protestant religion in all its forms abso- 
lutely suppressed. It was an absurd story and Oates was after- 
wards proved to be a liar born and bred, with a long career of 
deception and dishonesty behind him, but no one at that time 
took the trouble to look up his record. 

His story was generally believed and a chance occurrence that 
followed spread it far more widely. The dead body of the magis- 
trate who had listened to his story and taken his deposition was 
found the next morning lying in the street. This was probably 
the work of robbers, but many jumped to the conclusion that he 
had been murdered by the " Papists " for his interference with 
their plot. London was in a fever of apprehension, many believ- 
ing that the city was about to be burned and the Protestants 
massacred. A little flail with a lead tip which could be carried 
in the pocket and used to defend one's self against attack was 
invented and named the " Protestant flail." So many were bought 
that the inventor made his fortune. Various persons who were 
suspected of favoring Roman Catholic plans or taking part in 
conspiracies were tried and executed, and some of the Roman 
Catholic noblemen were imprisoned in the Tower. A whole class 
of base informers arose who gave perjured testimony to support 
the prevailing panic. 

421. The Exclusion Bills. — The new parliament which met in 
1679 shared in the general excitement and fierce opposition to 
the Roman Catholics. This opposition took the form of a vigor- 
ous effort to exclude James from the succession to the throne. The 
House of Commons believed that if a devotedly Roman Catholic 
king came to rule over England he would certainly attack the 
Protestantism of his subjects. Charles, however, was loyal to his 
brother. He had no legitimate children. of his own, and had, 
with a devotion to principle quite unusual to him, determined to 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 475 

support his brother's right of inheritance at all hazards. He an- 
nounced that he was willing to sign a bill placing restrictions 
upon the exercise of many royal powers when the king was a 
Roman Catholic. But parliament was not satisfied with such a 
compromise and in 1679 prepared to pass an Exclusion Bill which 
would have prevented James from inheriting the crown at all. 
Charles dissolved parliament rather than allow the bill to pass. 

Again the next year a new House of Commons passed a similar 
Exclusion Bill, and, although it was temporarily defeated in the 
House of Lords, Charles thought it safer to dissolve parliament 
again. Still a third parliament attempted to pass the same bill 
and was also dissolved by the king. 

422. The Succession to the Crown. — The person whom the 
leaders of parliament had in mind as successor to the throne, if 
they could have carried the Exclusion Bill, was the oldest illegiti- 
mate son of Charles, the duke of Monmouth. He was known to 
be a Protestant and was commonly spoken of as the " Protestant 
Duke." He had neither high ambitions nor great abilities and 
did not show much suitability for the throne. His illegitimate 
birth was a bar to any unanimous acceptance of him by the 
English nation. To overcome this obstacle a report was spread 
abroad and very generally believed that his mother had really 
been married to Charles and that the king would acknowledge 
the marriage in good time. A large party of the Protestants were 
willing to favor Monmouth and they were headed by skillful leaders 
in parliament. 

Many, on the other hand, were willing to let matters take their 
natural course. James would be a Roman Catholic king, but 
he would not be likely to outlive his brother very long. He had 
two daughters, Mary and Anne, who had been brought up as 
Protestants, the elder of whom, Mary, would naturally succeed 
him. She was married to a Protestant prince, William, prince of 
Orange. It seemed altogether probable, therefore, that England 
would have a Protestant ruler again within a comparatively short 



476 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

time. The only cloud on the horizon, as far as this expectation 
went, was that James later in life married a second time and 
chose a Roman Catholic princess. If he should have a son, this 
prince would undoubtedly be brought up as a Roman Catholic, 
and would inherit the crown in preference to his elder sisters. 

423. Dread of Civil War. — The advocates of the Exclusion Bill 
for a while kept up their agitation even more violently. In 1681 
parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford instead of at West- 
minster, which had long been its regular meeting place. The 
reason for this was that the London mob had showed so much 
favor to the exclusionists that the king and his ministers feared 
it might break in on parliament and influence its decisions. The 
leading parliamentary agitators, on the other hand, professed to 
believe that the king wanted to force them by arms to do as he 
wished. They urged the members therefore to bring with them 
bands of servants armed for self-defense. This was mistaken 
advice. The sight of gentlemen gathering with bands of followers 
and with arms in their hands awakened among the people dread 
of a new civil war. The remembrance of the late conflict and 
of the rule of the army was still too fresh and hateful for men 
to look with equanimity upon the possibility of its return. Most 
Englishmen dreaded Roman Catholics, but they hated the rule 
of soldiers still more. 

Very soon, therefore, the violent agitation against the "Papists" 
and against the succession of James came to an end, and the 
tide of popular feeling began to flow the "other way. Several of 
those who had been most active in prosecuting Roman Catholics 
were now themselves prosecuted, and the inventor of the Prot- 
estant flail and others were convicted and executed for having 
borne arms and planned to attack parliament and the king. 
Representatives of the strongly royalist party were elected in the 
city governments and the king became much more popular. 

This general reaction in the country was favored by the dis- 
covery in 1683 of a plot to attack and seize the king and his 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 477 

1 brother as they passed, on their return from a hunting trip, a 
building called "Rye House," not far from London. The plan 
failed, as the king came back some days earlier than he was 
expected. This conspiracy, which is known as the " Rye House 
Plot," had been formed by a few old soldiers of the Common- 
wealth who were keeping up the agitation against James and the 
Roman Catholics. The conspirators were discovered and most 
of them executed, but the whole exclusion ist party had to bear 
the blame of their violence. 

424. Execution of Russell and Sidney. — At about the same 
time the existence of another association for political objects 
was discovered. It was composed of noblemen and gentlemen 
of liberal views who wanted to force the king to withdraw his 
support from the Catholics and to yield to the demands of par- 
liament. At another time this union of high-minded and prom- 
inent men would probably have been considered innocent enough. 
But just now, when there was a general feeling that those who 
were opposing the king had gone too far and were threatening 
to bring on civil war, it was construed as treason and the mem- 
bers of the combination were arrested and accused. Lord Rus- 

, sell, one of the noblest and best of men, was subjected to a 
long trial. More fortunate than Raleigh, his wife was allowed 
to sit at his side taking notes of the proceedings and assisting 
him to remember what had been said and done. He was never- 
theless declared guilty of treason and executed. Algernon Sidney, 
a man of the same stamp, a student, thinker, and eloquent writer, 
a theoretical republican, but without any intention or desire to 
bring about a change in the government, was executed at the 
same time for conspiracy against the king. The duke of Mon- 
mouth, who had been connected with the organization, was par- 
doned by his father but sent to Holland as an exile. The earl of 
Essex committed suicide in prison. The popularity of Charles 
lasted out the remainder of his life and served to insure the 
peaceful accession of James in 1685. 



478 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



425. Relations of England with Holland and France. — The 

two foreign countries with which England now had most to do 
were Holland and France. At the beginning of Charles's reign 
England was hostile to Holland and on tolerably good terms with 
France. The clashing of English and Dutch commercial inter- 
ests has already been described. The two countries were still 
engaged in building up trade and colonies in the East Indies, the 
West Indies, and America. They both had fishing fleets in the 
North Sea and trading settlements on the west coast of Africa. 

English and Dutch 
vessels were still 
competing for the 
carrying trade 1 of 
Europe. 

The Dutch were 
such skillful sail- 
ors and had such 
good vessels that 
they had generally 
proved themselves 
able to underbid 
An English War Vessel : the " Royal Charles," the the English, even 
Vessel on which Charles II returned to England - n tra( } e w j t ^ £ ne _ 

in 166 ° i au u TU 

land herself. The 

English government, on the other hand, had long tried to encour- 
age its own seagoing merchants in order to give them occupation 
and also that there might be an abundance of vessels and sailors 
in case they were needed for a maritime war. To keep the car- 
rying trade of England for its own merchants the Navigation Act 
had been passed in 165 1. In 1660 this law was reenacted and 
other still stricter Navigation Acts afterwards passed. The old 
disputes about the Spice Islands in the East, the fisheries in the 
North Sea, and other questions still went on. Feeling became 

1 See p. 456. 




RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 479 

more bitter till in 1664 war broke out again and raged on the 
coast of America and Africa and in the English Channel. 

A series of destructive sea fights took place, but decided 
nothing. After one series of victories the Dutch admiral sailed 
up and down the Channel with a broom at his masthead to show 
that he had swept the English from the sea. But soon afterwards 
the English fleet ravaged the coast of Holland, and then in turn 
a Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and captured ships almost 
in the harbor of London. The two countries were too evenly 
matched upon the sea to reach a decisive result by war, and 
peace was agreed upon in 1667. By this treaty the Dutch ceded 
New Amsterdam to the English, and England yielded the Spice 
Islands to the Dutch, confining her eastern trade to the mainland 
of India. New Amsterdam was renamed New York after the 
king's brother James, duke of York. The Dutch forts on the 
coast of Africa were also surrendered to the English, and the first 
English " guineas " were coined from gold imported from the 
Guinea coast. They were intended to be worth a pound, but 
were soon taken and have always since been estimated at twenty- 
one shillings. 

426. The Triple Alliance. — The war with Holland sprang from 
temporary commercial conditions. When English trade supremacy 
had once been secured in England, America, and India, and when 
the Dutch had established their own independent fields of activity, 
the old bonds of race and religion again asserted themselves and 
drew the two nations more closely together. This was the 
more inevitable because of their common danger from the rising 
power and aggressiveness of France. France under Louis XIV 
had a strong government, a full treasury, and a well organized 
and equipped army. Most important of all, the national power 
and the foreign and internal policy of France were under the 
sole control of the king. No parliament or other body existed 
in France which could restrict the action which he and his min- 
isters wished to take. Louis had an ambitious desire to extend 



480 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

his territories and to make France supreme over all the surround- 
ing countries of the continent. England, although an island, was 
not without interest in his policy. She, like other countries, was 
in danger from his interference in her internal concerns, if he 
should at any time find it to his interest, so to interfere. 

The danger of Holland was of course still greater, as nothing 
but the Spanish Netherlands separated her frontiers from those 
of France, and there were frequent causes of dispute. The need 
of common resistance to France gradually convinced thoughtful 
statesmen in England that their interest lay in peace with the 
Dutch, and that the two countries should be allies, not enemies. 
This conviction led to the formation in 1668 of the Triple 
Alliance, an agreement between England, Holland, and Sweden 
to force Louis to agree to reasonable concessions and to bring 
his wars to an end. From this time forward the popular Eng- 
lish hostility to the Dutch died out, while there was a growing 
antagonism to France. 

427. Subserviency of Charles II to France. — This was not, 
however, either the feeling or the private interest of Charles. 
There were many reasons why he should feel friendly to France. 
His mother was Henrietta Maria, sister of Louis XIII, and he 
had been well treated in France during the time of his exile. 
His Roman Catholic religious proclivities drew him in the same 
direction, and, probably stronger than all, Louis had a full 
treasury which might be drawn on should Charles need money 
that he could not conveniently get from his own subjects. His 
policy, therefore, during his whole reign was one of subserviency 
to France. He acted in the interest of France whenever he could 
do so secretly or without bringing about a serious conflict with 
his own parliament. An early and especially unpopular instance 
of this was his cession to Louis XIV, for the sum of ^200,000, 
of the city of Dunkirk, which had been captured by Cromwell's 
army and was commonly looked upon as in a sense an equivalent 
for Calais. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 481 

The Triple Alliance was distasteful to Charles both because his 
commercial ambitions for England stilj. made him suspicious of 
the Dutch and because it placed him on bad terms with the 
French king. He entered upon it unwillingly, partly at the 
urgency of his ambassador, the gifted Sir William Temple, partly 
with the idea that Louis would offer him good terms to with- 
draw from it. It had not been two years in existence, there- 
fore, before Charles made a treaty with the king of France which 
was kept secret from his most trusted ministers, being negotiated 
through one of Charles's sisters. It is commonly known as the 
" Treaty of Dover." There was good reason for keeping it secret, 
for by it Charles agreed to desert Holland, to assist Louis in ob- 
taining certain territory from Spain, and even to allow a large 
force of English soldiers to serve in the French army when war 
between France and Holland should break out. In return for 
these concessions Louis agreed to give Charles a large sum of 
money immediately, and a still larger annual sum when the time 
should come for England to give help to the French against the 
Dutch. At the close of the war England was to receive some 
territory from Holland and Spain, and six thousand French troops 
were to be sent into England to aid Charles if he should decide 
openly to declare himself a Roman Catholic. 

428. The Third War with the Dutch. — The full terms of this 
treaty did not come out for years, but that part of it which 
brought England into another war with Holland was made the 
basis of an open treaty some time afterwards. The king's will 
and the remaining commercial disputes were sufficient to precipi- 
tate it, though it had neither general approval nor enthusiastic sup- 
port. This war began in 1672. The struggle against the Fiench 
and English in alliance was desperately hard for the Dutch. On 
the sea the usual destructive but indecisive battles were fought 
between the Dutch and the English fleets. On land the Dutch 
territories were rapidly overrun by the enormous armies of Louis. 
Finally as a last resort the Hollanders cut the dikes which kept 



482 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the seas and rivers from their fields, allowed the waters to rush 
in, and at this heavy price put an impassable girdle around their 
cities and forced the French to retire. The hearts of the Eng- 
lish people and of the best of English statesmen turned more 
and more against the war with the Dutch and it was brought to 
an end in 1674. 

Charles and Louis now both recognized that it would be 
impossible to draw the English again into an active war against 
the Dutch. The most the two allied sovereigns could hope for 
was to keep England neutral. For the purpose of securing this 
object Louis took Charles regularly into his pay, granting him 
;£i 00,000 a year so that he might not be forced to ask parlia- 
ment for money and as a result be induced to consent to a war 
against France. Louis also gave him ^"1,600,000 to prorogue 
his restless parliament, and gave him special sums at other 
times. Charles was in the main faithful to his paymaster, post- 
poned the calling of a parliament as long as he could, and pro- 
rogued it when it threatened to put pressure upon him to join 
the contest against Louis. This remained the condition of English 
foreign affairs during the last ten years of Charles's reign. The 
English king, in the humiliating position of being in the pay of 
France, was keeping England out of a combination with Holland, 
which otherwise would have been her natural policy, and keeping 
her in close alliance with France, her natural rival. 

429. Charles and his Ministers; Clarendon. — Charles, as has 
been seen, never trusted implicitly in his ministers, never identi- 
fied his fortune with them, and never had a " court favorite," as 
his father and grandfather had had. In the early years of his 
reign his principal minister had been Edward Hyde, earl of 
Clarendon, who occupied the office of lord chancellor. This 
statesman had been one of the opponents of Charles I at the 
beginning of the Long Parliament, but before the outbreak of 
the civil war had taken the side of the king. He was a labo- 
rious, devoted, and moderate minister and gave Charles good 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 483 



advice ; but he was a strong Anglican and opposed the favor 
which Charles showed to the Roman Catholics. He protested 
also against the king's immoral life and his lavishness and sub- 
serviency to his mistresses. 

In 1667 parliament tried to increase its control over taxation. 
According to law the king could collect no taxes except by grant 
of parliament; but when once collected there was no further 
control over the way in which they should be spent. It was 
pretty certain that of the money 
which had been granted by parlia- 
ment on the claim that it was needed 
for war, the navy, and other public 
uses, Charles had spent a great part 
lavishly on worthless women and 
other personal and unworthy ob- 
jects. The House of Commons now 
demanded an inquiry into the way 
money which they had granted had 
been expended. Clarendon resisted 
the demand most vigorously on the 
ground that it would limit the proper 
freedom of action of the king and 
his ministers. Parliament as a result 

attacked him bitterly. Since the king himself was weary of Clar- 
endon's remonstrances against his personal life, he dismissed him 
from office. He was soon afterwards impeached by the House 
of Commons on various charges. As the king made no attempt 
to defend him, he fled to France, where he remained in exile the 
remainder of his life. He spent his time writing a most valuable 
and interesting history of the " Great Rebellion," as he called the 
series of events from the meeting of the Long Parliament to the 
Restoration. 

430. The Cabal. — No one minister afterwards took the leading 
part which Clarendon had played. Five of the ministers were of 




Earl of Clarendon 



484 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

almost equal influence in the government and equally received 
the apparent confidence of the king. They were all noblemen of 
high rank, more lenient to the profligacy of the king than Claren- 
don had been, and more willing to support his policy of religious 
toleration. Some one noticed that the initials of the names of the 
five ministers, Lords Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and 
Lauderdale, formed the word cabal, which meant a committee or 
group of conspirators. They were therefore frequently spoken 
of as the "Cabal," and that word has come to have a new and 
more odious meaning from its connection with this group of rather 
selfish and unprincipled ministers. 

Charles, however, gave his confidence to them but partially. 
Two who were Catholics knew of the Treaty of Dover, the others 
were kept in profound ignorance of it. In fact Buckingham and 
Ashley were allowed to take part seriously in the formation of 
a pretended treaty with France which was to hide the real but 
secret agreement. These ministers as yet had no meetings, 
combined on no general policy, and did not acknowledge the 
duty of supporting one another. It was not, therefore, a minis- 
try in the modern sense of the word. 

The members of the Cabal one after another resigned or were 
dismissed and others took their places. Ashley, who had been 
made earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor, and who was the 
ablest of the group, was dismissed by the king for supporting the 
Test Act. He then became the bitterest opponent of the king 
and of James, and was for years the leader in the agitation for the 
Exclusion Bill. He was also the leader in parliament of a small 
but growing party which favored granting toleration to the Dis- 
senters though not to Roman Catholics. He was a gifted but 
reckless man, and in later years did much to organize that law- 
less opposition to the government which made men fear civil war 
again and at last brought about a reaction in favor of the king. 
In 1682 he was in such danger of prosecution for treason that he 
fled to Holland, where he died the next year. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 485 

The most influential minister during Charles's later years, the 
earl of Danby, was impeached by the House of Commons under 
the belief that he had taken bribes from France not to stand in 
the way of her war with the Dutch. The king, who was the real 
recipient of French bribes, after protecting Danby for some time, 
fearing that he would betray the royal secrets, dismissed him from 
office and imprisoned him in the Tower. The House of Commons 
then dropped the impeachment proceedings. 

431. Recognition of the Power of Parliament. — It may be 
noticed that Charles II dismissed his ministers as soon as they 
became clearly unpopular with parliament. Clarendon and Danby 
went into exile or imprisonment not because they had lost the 
confidence of the king, but because they had lost the confidence 
and approval of the majority in parliament. The king would not 
have acknowledged, any more than Elizabeth, James, or Charles I, 
that parliament had a right to control him in choosing his ministers. 
Nevertheless, as a practical matter, he recognized that to get along 
with parliament he must be represented by men who were toler- 
ably satisfactory to its majority. It was fast coming to be a settled 
rule that a minister must satisfy parliament as well as the king. 

Nor did Charles openly and for any length of time oppose the 
wishes of parliament in his main lines of policy. With the one 
exception of his manly and determined support of his brother's 
claims to the crown he either yielded to the wishes of parliament 
or took refuge in secret and underhand attempts to oppose them. 
Although he favored toleration he signed the various persecuting 
and restrictive statutes which parliament passed and sent to him. 
Although he was favorable to France and opposed to Holland, 
he at one time allowed the Triple Alliance to be formed, and 
at another ceased to give the support to France which he wished 
and for which he had been so well paid. These actions indicate 
that the power of parliament was growing. No conditions had 
been imposed on the king at the Restoration, but the changed cir- 
cumstances made parliament a more influential body than it had 




486 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

been before, and the personal indolence, good humor, and good 
judgment of Charles prevented him from opposing this growth. 

432. Growth of Political Parties. — This was the period in 
which permanent political parties came into existence. In earlier 
times there had been no settled parties, though of course mem- 
bers of parliament divided into those who favored and those 
who opposed particular measures. During the sixteenth century 
the share taken by parliament in the work of government was 
too small and parliament met too infrequently for parties to be 
formed. In the Long Parliament party divisions had shown them- 
selves, but the first parties soon transformed themselves into the 
opposing forces of a civil war, and the later divisions were sup- 
pressed by the army. After the Restoration, however, things were 
different. Parliament met frequently, and the growing power 
which has just been spoken of made it worth while for parties to 
form themselves, adopt principles, and assert their influence. 

The division into parties that took place was a natural one, 
based on the attitude of different men toward the government. 
One class of men both in and outside of parliament felt very 
strongly that the government ought to be upheld through every- 
thing. The things that struck them as most important were the 
good order, peace, and quiet that came to the country from a 
strong government. As the government of England was mon- 
archical, all their feelings led such men to loyalty and devotion 
to the king. The same men naturally supported the established 
church of England, as it also was part of the old well-ordered 
system of the government of the country. 

Other men, without being exactly opposed to this set of views, 
were more impressed with the need of protecting men from the 
oppression of government. Their inclination was to restrict the 
royal power and to give greater liberty to individual men. They 
were opposed to much control by government. Such men natu- 
rally adopted a policy of toleration in religious matters, since 
this also was a form of individual liberty. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 487 

These differences of views came out frequently in the Con- 
vention Parliament of 1660, and still more clearly in the Cavalier 
Parliament, which sat in successive sessions during the next 
seventeen years of Charles's reign. Ministers recognized these 
differences and appealed to them. The earl of Danby strove 
regularly for the support of men of the former class, the earl of 
Shaftesbury for the support of those of the latter. 

433. Petitioners and Abhorrers; Whigs and Tories. — The first 
occasion when any distinct party names were used or organization 
effected was in 1680. Parliament had been dissolved in 1679 
to prevent its passing the Exclusion Bill. Within a few months 
numerous petitions were sent to the king, evidently by a precon- 
certed arrangement, urging him to call parliament together again, 
so that the Exclusion Bill could be passed. Great numbers of 
counter addresses were then sent to the king declaring the 
abhorrence felt by the writers at the efforts being made to force 
the king to call parliament until in his own good judgment he 
should think best. Those who sent the first set of petitions 
were commonly called " Petitioners," those who sent the others 
" Abhorrers." 

In parliament, when it met, the same division was kept up. 
Petitioners and Abhorrers were soon superseded by " Whigs " and 
" Tories." These terms were in the first place words of abuse 
or ridicule. " Whigs" was an abbreviation of " Whigamores," 
the name applied to the fanatical Scotch Dissenters who were 
then in rebellion in the western counties of Scotland. Tories 
were Irish outlaws or highwaymen. Terms which were at first 
applied in ridicule, as so often happens, were later accepted 
seriously and became the well-established names for the two 
great political parties. After this time those who belonged 
to the same party generally held together on public questions, 
and in parliament one or other of the parties usually had a 
distinct majority. Having once come into existence, the parties 
adopted certain points of policy which had very little to do with 



488 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

their origin. In order to win adherents in parliament the miser- 
able system of bribery sprang up, and the leaders of both parties 
frequently won members for their side by payment in money, 
offices, or other considerations. 

The formation of parties had a most important effect on the 
growth of the powers of parliament. A body of men with dis- 
tinct principles, a party organization, and acknowledged leaders 
was so powerful that when it proved itself to be in the majority 
on any question the king and his ministers practically had to con- 
form to its wishes. On the other hand, in earlier times, when 
just as many adherents of one view had existed, but without party 
organization or name, neither they nor the king had known their 
strength. The division into two well-marked parties has been the 
foundation of English parliamentary power. 

434. The Whig Nobles and Merchants and Tory Gentry and 
Clergy. — The classes of the people which belonged to the Whig 
and the Tory parties respectively were well defined. The men 
of most of the great noble families were Whigs. The heads of 
these families were members of the House of Lords, they had 
much power in the counties where their estates lay, and many 
members from the smaller boroughs were elected to the House of 
Commons by their influence. The merchants of the large com- 
mercial towns were also almost always Whigs, that party usually 
favoring trade and freedom of enterprise and of thought. 

The great mass of the country gentry and clergy, on the other 
hand, were Tories in their political principles. The country squire 
with his lands and manor house and the country clergyman with 
his parsonage -and parish church formed the great backbone of 
loyalty to the king and to the church. The country gentleman 
found occupation in looking after his lands, and acting as justice 
of the peace, and, in occasional instances, in literary and scientific 
pursuits. His amusements were hunting and such social inter- 
course as he could carry on with other families of the same region. 
The country clergyman performed more or less faithfully the church 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 489 

services, attended to the duties of his parish, and ate, drank, and 
played cards with the families of the neighboring gentry. Neither 
squire nor clergyman knew much of the world beyond his immedi- 
ate neighborhood, and both were correspondingly narrow-minded, 
prejudiced, and loyal. 

435. The Attack on the Charters. — The Whig principles of the 
merchants were exercised in steady opposition to the autocratic 
tendencies of Charles. Their influence over the commercial cities 
was clearly shown in the elections to the later parliaments of his 
reign, and in the agitations led by Shaftesbury, which were so 
nearly successful in forcing the Exclusion Bill upon him. To 
overcome this opposition the king and his ministers devised a 
plan to put the control of the towns into the hands of men of 
more royalist tendencies. It will be remembered that each town 
had a charter or series of charters giving it a right to carry on its 
own government, but at the same time requiring those who directed 
its affairs to fulfill certain conditions. In 1682 a prosecution 
against the city of London was brought into the courts by a writ 
called " Quo Warranto," claiming that the city had failed to con- 
form to the requirements of its charter and asking that the charter 
should therefore be forfeited. 1 After a long trial the judges, who 
were much influenced by the crown, gave a decision against the 
city, its charter was forfeited, and for a while the king appointed 
the city officers in entire disregard of its old rights of self- 
government. 

This procedure having proved successful in the case of London, 
similar suits were brought against a number of other towns. The 
cities in each case were compelled to surrender their charters, and, 
although new ones were granted to them, the members of the new 

1 The words quo warranto were the first two words of the order of 
the court requiring the city authorities to appear in court and tell " by what 
warrant " they still exercised their powers when they had failed to conform 
to the conditions of their charter. It would then be their duty to prove, 
if they could, that they had done all that their charter required of them. 



490 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

government or corporation, who were named by the king in the 
charter itself, were in almost all cases Tories. The result was 
that those town governments which elected members to parlia- 
ment now chose Tories where Whigs had before been sent. But 
natural tendencies were stronger than royal schemes, and little by 
little the governments of the larger towns gradually came again 
into the hands of the Whigs. 

436. Creation of the Standing Army. — In still another way 
more influence was gained by the king. In earlier times the 
English government had kept no troops except in time of war. 
One of the provisions of the Declaration of Breda had been that 
the Commonwealth army should be paid off and dissolved. Most 
governments on the continent of Europe, however, now kept up 
standing armies, and Charles II had several reasons for warning 
to retain soldiers permanently in his service. Instead of disband- 
ing the whole army, therefore, he retained three regiments, one 
of cavalry and one of foot in England, and one at that time in 
garrison at Dunkirk. Charles's wife was a Portuguese princess, 
who brought with her as part of her dowry the possession of Tan- 
gier in Africa and Bombay in India, so that there was an excuse 
for keeping up these regiments for garrison purposes even after 
Dunkirk was ceded to France. The standing army therefore con- 
tinued to exist, though for a long time it amounted only to about 
five thousand men. 

437. Milton Most of the literature of the period of Charles II 

reflected the character of the court, — brilliant, witty, reckless, 
with no very high vein of imagination. Dryden is almost the only 
great name in poetry which really belongs to this period. There 
were two other men, however, whose writings fall largely within 
the period of the Restoration and yet whose life and character 
reflect rather the great Puritan period which had just passed. 
One of these was John Milton. A brilliant student at Cambridge, 
while Laud and Wentworth were supporting Charles I in his per- 
sonal government he was producing poetry imbued with the 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 



491 



spirit of the old Greeks and Romans and some of it written in 
the ancient languages. The civil war and the Commonwealth, 
however, appealed strongly to his Puritanism and his love of 
liberty, and he produced a number of prose works on questions 
of the day. His Areopagitica was an appeal for freedom of rea- 
son and of the press against the restrictions imposed by the West- 
minster Presbyterian Assembly. His Eikonoklastes, 1 issued jus* 
after the execution of Charles I, was an answer to the Eikon 
Basilike and an attack upon the 
king and his system of absolute 
monarchy. Along with these and 
other essays he wrote from time 
to time sonnets and other shorter 
poetic pieces called forth by the 
great events in the struggle then 
in progress. 

He held also an official posi- 
tion, serving as corresponding 
secretary to the council of state 
and later to the government of 
the Protector. His duties were 
principally to translate into Latin 
and sometimes to draw up letters 
or treaties with foreign governments. He had no actual respon- 
sibility under the Commonwealth and was therefore allowed, at 
the Restoration to go into an undisturbed retirement. At this 
time he became totally blind, and all his later productions were 
preserved by dictation. Composed in this way, he published in 
1667 Paradise Lost, his greatest poem and one of the greatest 
in the English language. Its biblical subject, its sense of reality 
of divine things, its high tone of earnestness, and the sonorous 
eloquence of the blank verse in which it is written are all char- 
acteristic of the best of Puritanism and represent in literature 
1 Greek for Image Breaker. 




John Milton 



492 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

much the same spirit as Cromwell expressed in the practical tasks 
of government. 

438. Bunyan. — John Bunyan was a wandering tinker who 
became a soldier in the parliamentary army and was later an 
earnest Baptist preacher. After the Restoration he attempted to 
continue his preaching, notwithstanding the laws against Dis- 
senters, and as a result was imprisoned for a long time in Bed- 
ford jail. From his prison he sent out a series of religious tracts 
and other works. In 1678 appeared his Pilgrim's Progress, the 
most popular allegorical work ever written. 

Looked upon simply as a story, the reality of its characters, 
the simplicity and clearness of the narrative, the quaintness of 
the observations have delighted millions of readers. It has been 
translated into all the languages of Europe and has been pub- 
lished in every form of which the printing press is capable. It 
has also given religious teaching to many hundreds of thousands. 
It represents the feelings of the Dissenters of that time. They 
believed that they were living in the midst of a wicked world 
from which but. one here and there would be saved, and that 
only by fleeing from the occupations, the amusements, and the 
interests of their time. 

439. The Habeas Corpus Act. — There are three important 
events which belong to the reign of Charles II which have not 
yet been mentioned, — the passage of the Habeas Corpus Act, 
the Plague, and the Great Fire of London. The writ of habeas 
corpus x was an order granted by a judge upon any man who was 
holding another in confinement, requiring the captor to bring 
his prisoner before the judge to tell why he was confining him. 
Then, if a good reason for keeping the prisoner in custody was 
given, the judge appointed a time for his trial, if not he ordered 
his release. This writ had been used for centuries in England, 

1 Habeas corpus means " You are to have the body," and with the words 
which follow in the writ require the jailer to have the body of such a person, 
not merely a message from him, at such a time before the court. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 493 

but there were many ways in which jailers and judges eluded its 
requirements. This was done especially when the king or minis- 
ters wished a man to be imprisoned and held without being able 
or willing to make any formal charge against him. In 1679, 
under the influence of Shaftesbury, an act was passed which put 
an end to all these interferences with the free and effective use 
of the writ of habeas corpus. Comparatively little interest was 
taken in the passage of the act at the time, but afterwards it 
came to be more and more highly valued. It was long a special 
mark of the freedom enjoyed by the English people, as it gave 
them a protection possessed by subjects of no other European 
government. 

440. The Plague. — In the summer of 1665 there was a visita- 
tion of pestilence in London, probably almost as destructive as 
the Black Death of 1349, and possibly a recurrence of the same 
disease. Epidemics of pestilence were a frequent occurrence 
in those days of close building, narrow, dirty, and badly repaired 
streets, and lack of medical knowledge, but this attack was of 
such destructiveness as to stand out from all others and to be 
known especially as the " Plague." It spread into other parts of 
the country, but was not so severe, and it died away when winter 
came. During its ravages deaths became so numerous that the 
ordinary arrangements for funerals were no longer practicable, and 
wagons were sent by the city authorities through the streets at 
night, the driver ringing a bell and calling out, " Bring out your 
dead." The Plague has been made familiar through the well- 
known description contained in Dryden's poem Annus MirafoYis, 
and in the account written afterwards by Defoe, the author of 
Robinson Crusoe. 

441. The Great Fire. — One of the other events which led 
Dryden to speak of 1 665-1 666 as the "wonderful year" was 
the terrible fire which raged for three days over the most closely 
built parts of London. Almost the whole of the ancient city was 
swept away. St. Paul's Cathedral and most of the other buildings 



494 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



which had made up the London of the middle ages, of Queen 
Elizabeth, and of the early Stuart period were destroyed. Lon- 
don, therefore, has fewer mediaeval remains than any other old 
city of Europe. The fire caused terrible loss and privation, but 
there were some compensations. In the first place the germs of 

the Plague were 
effectually de- 
stroyed, and in the 
second place the 
streets were made 
wider and the 
houses more 
healthful as the 
city was rebuilt. 

442. Architec- 
ture and Painting. 
— Plans were 
made for a resto- 
ration of the city 
on one great sys- 
tem, and, although 
these were not 
carried out, yet an 
admirable oppor- 
tunity was given 
for the erection 
of new buildings. 
It was a time of 
much interest in architecture and there were in England several 
architects of ability and originality. Of these Sir Christopher 
Wren was the most famous. He had been trained in Italy and 
was imbued with admiration for the work of the Italian Renais- 
sance. The works on architecture also which had the greatest 
reputation at this time were written by Italians. Most of the 




iSiii r 

St. Paul's Cathedral 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 495 

building of the later seventeenth century, therefore, both in the 
country and in the burned city, was of this style. St. Paul's 
Cathedral as we see it now was designed and built by Wren. He 
is buried within it in a tomb which bears the inscription 

Si monunventum requiris, circumspice, 
" If you seek his monument, look around you." 

In architecture the designs came from abroad, but the archi- 
tects were usually Englishmen. In painting the artists them- 
selves were still foreigners. The German Holbein and his pupils 
had painted the portraits of the men of Henry VIII's day; 
Dutch, Italian, and Spanish painters, those of Queen Elizabeth 
and James I and their courtiers. In the time of Charles I, 
Vandyke, a gifted Flemish artist, settled in England as court 
painter and left numerous and charming portraits of the king, 
his family, and other prominent men and women of the time. 
Sir Peter Lely, a Dutchman, was the court and popular painter 
through much of the period of the Restoration, but he had not 
the grace of Vandyke, and the court beauties and noblemen of the 
time of Charles II were either not so handsome in themselves or 
not so fortunate in their painter as were those of the time of 
Charles I, or even of the Commonwealth. There were only a 
few native artists, such as Samuel Cooper, who has left a fine 
portrait of Cromwell. 

443. Science. — The English accomplished more in the inves- 
tigation of nature than in the production of works of art. In the 
early years of the seventeenth century, when Sir Francis Bacon 
was making experiments in natural science and striving to base a 
philosophy entirely upon such investigation, he had found but few 
to take an interest in his work. But since then men had more 
and more turned their attention and their learning to the study 
of matter, force, the appearances of the outer world, the laws of 
mathematics, and the variety of vegetable and animal nature. A 
group of men interested in such matters began to hold weekly 



496 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

meetings in London and Oxford in the midst of the civil war, and 
in 1662 a number of them obtained a charter under the name of 
the "Royal Society." They began in 1665 the publication of the 
series of transactions which has been kept up ever since. Many 
discoveries were made and recorded by the scientists of this time, 
especially by the greatest of them, Sir Isaac Newton. 

444. Chocolate, Coffee, and Tea. — A change of great interest 
and importance in the habits of life came about during tnis period 
in the growing custom of drinking chocolate, coffee, and tea. 
Native beer and ale and imported wine had been the common 
beverages of England. During the middle years of the seven- 
teenth century the use of chocolate made its way into England 
from Spain and Italy, whither it had been brought from Mexico 
and the West Indies, where the cocoa tree is indigenous and the 
habit of making a drink from the nuts a native one. At first it 
was recommended and used as a medicine, but soon it became 
customary to take it as a pleasant drink instead of wine or beer. 
The increasing connection with eastern countries made many new 
products more familiar during the Commonwealth and the reign 
of Charles II. Among these coffee was introduced from Arabia 
and some other parts of Asia where it had long been familiar. 
Tea began to be used about the same time but grew more slowly 
into popularity. 

One of the results of the common use of these beverages was 
the opening of rooms known as " coffee-houses " where they were 
provided and sold. The first of these was opened by a Greek in 
London in 1652. They became the customary meeting places, 
in London and the larger cities, of men of leisure who took an 
interest in public affairs. Here current events were talked over 
and opinions expressed and compared. The actions of the gov- 
ernment as well as books and the fashions were subjected to 
discussion and criticism. A body of common public opinion, 
small but influential, was thus created. As far as it related to 
politics coffee-house opinion was like the opinions of the readers 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 497 

of a modern daily newspaper ; in matters of literature it was more 
like the common judgment on books obtained by the readers of 
some literary review. 

445. Newspapers. — At the coffee-houses the current news- 
papers could be found and read. Newspapers had been first 
printed in the reign of James, probably the earliest known dated 
paper being The C our ant or Weekly News, begun in the year 
162 1. Notwithstanding the name neither this nor other such 
publications came out very regularly. They might be described 
as small pamphlets dealing with the occurrences of the time and 
appearing about once a week, often with a new title for each 
number. 

When the civil war broke out there was .so much of interest 
going on that a number of newspapers appeared more regularly, 
once a week being the usual time. Then came a period when 
the government tried to suppress all of them but one or two, 
which were authorized to print public news. After the Restora- 
tion this effort to put an end to most of the newspapers was kept 
up. A severe licensing act was passed in 1662 forbidding all 
publications except those which had passed the government cen- 
sorship. A regular officer was appointed to hunt out and prose- 
cute all writers and printers of unauthorized papers. This officer 
was himself allowed to print a newspaper with the authority of 
government. After many changes and difficulties the London 
Gazette became the only authorized newspaper in 1666. It was 
a small paper containing very little news and that badly told. 
•Everything that might have been of political interest was kept 
out by the government, and it did not occur to the publishers to 
describe the everyday occurrences that fill so much room in modern 
newspapers. 

In the latter part of the reign of Charles II other newspapers 
were started and either approved by the censor or published 
secretly. There was so much excitement that there was a ready 
sale for newspapers, both Whig and Tory, and gradually a number 



498 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



came to be established and regularly supported by sympathizers 
with one or other of these parties. 

446. Death of Charles II. — Charles died in 1685. The scenes 
at his deathbed were significant. He suffered from an apoplectic 
stroke but recovered consciousness and lingered several days. 
His usual wit did not desert him, for he asked pardon of those 
around him for his delay, saying that he was an unconscionable 
time in dying. When he was failing, a Roman Catholic priest 
was brought to him by his brother. Then, after the church of 

England clergymen and all others 
had left the room, Charles con- 
fessed, received absolution, and 
died a member of the church of 
Rome. There was little that was 
high-minded or admirable in the 
character of Charles II. None the 
k \ less the twenty-five years of his 
) \ reign had been a period of much 
constitutional, commercial, and in- 
\ tellectual progress. 

447. Accession of James II. — 
James, duke of York, the late king's 
only brother, was immediately pro- 
claimed king. It was well known 
that he was a Roman Catholic, and it was true, if not so well 
known, that he held the same views of the powers of the king 
and had the same obstinate determination to have his own way 
as his father. He had but little of the ease of manner, the wit, 
and the good nature of his brother. Nevertheless the Tory reac- 
tion in the country had been so clear, and the feeling that the 
king's authority must be upheld in order to avoid something 
worse was still so strong, that he came to the throne on a wave 
of popularity. All classes seemed inclined to put the best inter- 
pretation possible on what he said and did. His first expressions 




James 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 499 

of good will and statement of his intention to support the church 
and state as they were then established also favored the expec- 
tation that he would carry on a moderate and reasonable rule. 
It is true that Titus Oates was tried for his libels upon the 
Roman Catholics, and in accordance with the known wishes of the 
king condemned to successive whippings on his bare back through 
the streets of London and to stand in the pillory ; but there was 
a general acceptance of this as a fair vengeance upon the inventor 
of the Popish plot which had brought so much suffering upon 
the Roman Catholics. 

448. Invasion of the Duke of Monmouth. — A small party, 
however, had never given up the plan of the Exclusion Bill and 
the succession of the " Protestant Duke." Within a few months 
after the accession of James, relying upon these discontented 
men and upon the large number of Dissenters in the west of 
England, Monmouth sailed from the continent, landed at Lyme 
in Devonshire, and declared himself the legitimate successor of 
Charles II. He was well received by the lower classes in the 
country and the citizens of many of the small towns, and soon 
had an army of five thousand men behind him ; but not a man 
of any rank or position took his side. News soon came also that 
parliament had passed an act of attainder declaring him guilty of 
treason and condemning him to death without further trial. He 
marched towards London, still hoping that some men of more 
influence would take his side, but none came. Soon James 
marched to meet him with a part of the regular troops and some 
militia forces. At Sedgemoor on July 6 " King Monmouth," as 
his followers called him, tried with his raw volunteers to sur- 
prise the king's army. They were, however, discovered, the rebels 
defeated and scattered, and Monmouth himself was captured and 
taken to London. A few days afterwards he was executed as 
a traitor. 

449. The Bloody Assizes, — A sad sequel to this hopeless 
rising was the series of trials held before a special body of judges 



500 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

sent through the southwestern counties to punish those who had 
given encouragement to Monmouth. The unavoidable harshness 
and the danger of injustice inseparable from treason trials were 
made far worse by the action of Jeffreys, at that time chief justice 
of the Court of King's Bench and president of the special com- 
mission. This judge was abusive, profane, and cruel. He seemed 
to take delight in sarcasm and mockery at the expense of those 
who were brought before him. He never failed to stretch the law 
to its fullest degree of severity, condemned many to death who 
might well have been spared, and made unjust sentences doubly 
hard by adding to them words of contempt and scorn. More 
than three hundred persons were hanged as a result of these trials 
and eight hundred and fifty-one condemned to be transported to 
the West Indies and sold into virtual slavery. A characteristic 
instance is that of Alice Lisle, an aged and charitable lady of 
Winchester, who was condemned to death and executed because 
she had hidden two fugitives in her house, knowing that they were 
rebels. When Chief Justice Jeffreys returned from the " Bloody 
Assizes," 1 as they have always since been called, James showed 
his approval of his actions by appointing him lord chancellor. 

450. Increasing Tyranny of the King. — This appointment 
was one of the earliest of James's actions which showed his 
inclination to disregard the feelings and the wishes of his sub- 
jects. It was quickly followed by others. Indeed a perpetual 
succession of acts of unpopularity and violations of the existing 
laws now ensued. Within three short years James aroused the 
antagonism of one class of people after another till the opposition 
to him was universal. He made no attempt to secure the good 
will and support of either the Tory or the Whig party, and con- 
sequently gained the distrust of both alike. 

An effort on the part of the king to put the Roman Catholics 
of the country in a better position was natural but was sure to be 
unpopular unless it were carried out with the greatest care and 
1 "Assizes " meant a session of a court. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 501 

moderation. James, on the contrary, entered immediately upon 
a reckless and illegal course of action to reach this end, and set 
himself in opposition to the strongest prejudices and fears of the 
English people. 

He quarreled with his ministers and dismissed Halifax and 
Sunderland, who refused to support him in the measures which he 
was planning for the aid of the Roman Catholics. As actions 
of doubtful legality would sooner or later come before the judges, 
he consulted them beforehand to see which of them would give 
decisions in agreement with his wishes. Those who opposed him 
he removed and replaced by such as would be compliant. He 
used the rebellion of Monmouth as an excuse for increasing the 
standing army and established a permanent military camp on 
Hounslow Heath, not far from London. For the purpose of dis- 
ciplining clergymen who opposed his actions he appointed an 
"Ecclesiastical Commission Court," at the head of which he 
placed Lord Chancellor Jeffreys. This was practically a reor- 
ganization of the old Court of High Commission which had made 
itself so obnoxious and had been abolished by the Long Parlia- 
ment. The king claimed, however, that the latter had been a 
court having power over both laymen and clergymen, while this 
had power only over clergymen. He acknowledged that a court 
having cognizance of affairs of laymen was under the control of 
parliament to create or to abolish, but pointed out that the king 
himself was by law supreme governor over the church of England 
and might regulate the clergy in any way he pleased. 

451 . Use of the Dispensing Power. — The Test Act had required 
that every person appointed to office should take certain religious 
tests to which no Roman Catholic could conform. James now 
appointed officers in the army who would not take the test, and 
declared to parliament that he intended to support them in their 
refusal. The House of Commons remonstrated against this, and 
as a result James prorogued and afterwards dissolved parliament. 
He declared that the king had always possessed the power of 



502 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

dispensing with the law in special cases. Charles II had made the 
same claim, but when parliament protested against it had dropped 
it for the time, as he so generally did matters of dispute. James 
was more determined. He had a collusive suit brought before 
the court to which he had appointed, as just shown, new judges 
for this very purpose. An officer of the army was prosecuted for 
exercising his powers without having taken the test. This officer 
produced in court a written dispensation from the king freeing 
him from the requirement to conform to this particular law. The 
judges decided that this dispensation was valid, and that the. king 
had the right, when he thought best, to dispense with the fulfill- 
ment of the law in special cases. 

452. Appointments in the Church and University. — Making 
use of the dispensing power, James authorized a number of clergy- 
men of the church of England who had recently become Roman 
Catholics to retain their benefices. He appointed a Roman 
Catholic to be dean of Christchurch College, Oxford, and allowed 
the head of University College to announce himself a Roman 
Catholic, to have mass said openly in the college chapel, and to 
set up a printing press in Oxford for Roman Catholic literature. 
He appointed as bishop of Oxford, Parker, a man who was uni- 
versally believed to be a Roman Catholic, though he had not 
announced himself publicly to be such. When church of Eng- 
land clergymen preached against " popery " he ordered them to 
be silent, and when the bishop of London refused to enforce 
these orders by suspending a prominent clergyman who had dis- 
obeyed them, the bishop himself was brought before the new 
Ecclesiastical Commission and suspended from his office. 

In 1687 the position of president of Magdalen College, Ox- 
ford, became vacant. James ordered the fellows, who had the 
right of election to the vacancy, to choose a certain clergy- 
man, a Roman Catholic. When the nominee of the king was 
shown to be of bad character James recommended another, 
Parker, the newly appointed bishop of Oxford. The fellows in 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 503 

the meantime had elected one of their own number, John Hough. 
They were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission and 
browbeaten and abused by Jeffreys. They refused, however, to 
submit, claiming that they had made their election and that 
Hough was now legally president of the college. James was 
furiously angry at this somewhat unexpected opposition and 
insisted on carrying out the sentence of the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mission. The fellows were expelled from their positions and 
Parker was installed in the office. Obstinacy was not all on the 
side of the king. The fellows would not surrender the keys and 
it was necessary to break open the doors of the president's lodg- 
ing in order to allow the new head to enter into possession. In 
no other way than this could James have more effectually aroused 
against himself the feeling of influential men of the established 
church and the educated classes. The very men who had been 
loyal to his father and his brother now at last felt themselves as 
much insulted and aggrieved as any Dissenter or parliamentarian. 
453. James's Declarations of Indulgence. — In fact James was 
being forced by the nature of his position to favor Dissenters in 
order to be able to favor Roman Catholics, and favor to these two 
bodies of course meant at that time opposition to the claims of 
the established church. At the very time when the contest was 
going on with the fellows of Magdalen College, James was in con- 
sultation with members of parliament to find whether or not they 
could be induced to grant toleration. Finding that parliamentary 
sentiment was all against it, he determined to dissolve that body 
and use his dispensing power still further. In 1687, therefore, he 
issued a Declaration of Indulgence similar to those which had 
been issued and then withdrawn by Charles II in 1662 and 1672. 
By it he suspended all laws against Roman Catholics and Dis- 
senters and gave to all men alike the privilege of worshiping 
publicly and freely as they pleased. This freedom was immedi- 
ately made use of by Roman Catholics but only slightly by Dis- 
senters. Many of the latter were Whigs and did not want a 



504 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

freedom granted by royal breach of the law ; others acted accord- 
ing to the advice of leading men of the established church, who 
were coming to see that they could not spare the support of 
Dissenters, and who now gave them private assurances that when 
parliament met again they would use all their influence to have 
a bill for the toleration of Dissenters passed. 

The next year, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of 
Indulgence, which extended even farther in its provisions than 
the former. The king, in order to secure for his action the widest 
publicity, ordered the declaration to be read in all the churches 
on two successive Sundays in April. Scarcely a clergyman obeyed 
the king's order. In Westminster Abbey one of the bishops, 
who was especially subservient to the king, began to read it, but 
his whole congregation immediately arose and left the abbey. In 
one of the London churches the minister, instead of reading the 
declaration, preached on the text, "Be it known unto thee, O 
king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship thy golden image 
which thou hast set up." It was very clear that the general feel- 
ing was opposed both to toleration and to the dispensing power. 

454. Petition of the Seven Bishops. — The archbishop of Can- 
terbury and six other bishops in the meantime had prepared a 
petition asking that the clergy might not be compelled to read 
the Declaration of Indulgence and presented it to the king at 
his palace at Whitehall. The king, as in the case of Magdalen 
College, was furious at the resistance to his will and the disobe- 
dience to his commands, and exclaimed: "This is a great sur- 
prise to me. I did not expect this from your church ; especially 
from some of you. This is a standard of rebellion. . . . God 
has given me the dispensing power and I will maintain it." They 
were then dismissed but soon afterwards were arrested on the 
claim that their petition was a libel and tended to sedition. 
They were tried in Westminster Hall in the presence of a great 
gathering of sympathizing noblemen, merchants of London, and 
other citizens. In the eyes of the people they were martyrs for 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 505 

the English church and for English liberties. Even the dissent- 
ing ministers sent a deputation to the jail to assure the bishops 
of their sympathy. 

The jury could not at first agree, but on the second day they 
brought in a verdict of " not guilty." It was received every- 
where with a tumult of joy. It was the first important decision 
adverse to the crown since the Restoration. Even the soldiers 
in the regular army broke into shouts of approval when they 
heard the news of the acquittal of the bishops. As James heard 
the universal rejoicing he was struck, apparently, with the first 
suspicion .that his subjects were turning away from him. His 
obstinate self-confidence and conviction that he was right, and 
his utter contempt for laws which interfered with his will, had 
hidden from him the change that was going on in the nation. 

455. Birth of a Prince. — This growth of unpopularity and dis- 
trust had led many to turn their thoughts to James's successor. 
The king was already well along in life and might die at any 
time. His eldest daughter, Mary, and her husband, William, 
prince of Orange, were already making arrangements for their 
expected inheritance of the English throne. William's represen- 
tative in England gave assurances to the leaders of various parties 
and religious denominations that they would have religious toler- 
ation and civil freedom when the princess and her husband came 
to the throne. All such hopes and plans were brought to a sud- 
den close June 10, 1688, two days after the arrest of the bishops, 
by the birth of a son to the king and queen. They had been long 
married, and the fear on the part of the people that there might 
be a prince to be brought up as a Roman Catholic to succeed 
his father had almost disappeared! 1 Now it seemed probable 
that this would take place, that Mary and her husband would 
never come to the throne, and that England would have to look 
forward to a line of Roman Catholic rulers. 

1 According to the rules of inheritance of the English crown a male 
child takes precedence of his older sisters; 



506 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

456. Invitation to William of Orange. — The birth of the king's 
son changed the whole situation. There was no advantage now 
in waiting for better times. If there was to be any opposition 
to the crown, the sooner the better. A group of prominent men, 
some bishops and some noblemen, some Tories and some Whigs, 
on the very day of the acquittal of the seven bishops sent an 
invitation to William to come over immediately to England to 
preserve its liberties against the attacks of the king. William 
had now become stadtholder of the Netherlands and was engaged 
in almost constant warfare with Louis XIV of France. The vari- 
ous countries of Europe were pitted against one another, almost 
all except England being ranged on one side or other of the great 
struggle. William felt this to be a golden opportunity to gain 
control of England and bring it into the great alliance which he 
was re-forming against Louis. He therefore immediately began 
to make arrangements for an invasion of England in the interest 
of the discontented subjects of James and of his wife's candidacy 
for the throne. He sent over and caused to be scattered through 
England a declaration stating the grievances of the English people 
as he understood them, and explaining that he was coming over 
to call a free parliament and to protect the nation against the 
tyranny of its king. 

The eyes of the king were at last opened. He realized his 
position and began rapidly to reverse the most unpopular of his 
recent acts. He restored the president and fellows who had been 
expelled from Magdalen College and the bishops and clergymen 
who had been suspended from their positions. He abolished the 
court of Ecclesiastical Commission, restored the charters of those 
towns which had recently been deprived of them by the courts, 
and prepared to call parliament. But it was too late. William 
was on the sea with a large fleet and an army of fourteen thou- 
sand men, the king had lost the confidence of all parties of the 
people, and his concessions were taken as an indication of his 
weakness, not of a change of opinions or intentions. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 16S8 507 

457. Landing of William. — On November 5, 1688, William 
landed at Tor Bay, in the southwest of England, not far from 
where Monmouth had disembarked three years before. The 
events which followed in this case were vastly different from 
that unfortunate expedition. William was a trained and tried 
ruler, a general with a high military reputation, and a statesman 
with the complete confidence and respect of his subjects in Hol- 
land and of those who had invited him into England. His wife 
had long been looked upon as the next heir to the throne, and 
it was natural to anticipate that her husband would exercise much 
influence over her and over the country of which she was queen. 
The people were therefore not unprepared to receive him. 

As William marched towards London by slow stages, with his 
Dutch army, most of the nobility and gentry of the country 
through which he passed rode to his camp to offer their ser- 
vices. Soon throughout the whole country the great nobles 
began to announce themselves for William, and they in turn 
received promises of support from the gentry of their sections of 
the country. James marched with the army to meet William, 
but many of his officers slipped away to the other camp. His 
personal followers and courtiers did the same thing. Even his 
daughter Anne and her husband and some of the most intimate 
of his friends deserted him. He recognized that his army was 
untrustworthy, and at Salisbury halted and shortly afterwards 
returned almost alone to London. 

From this time James lost courage and spirit. The complete- 
ness with which all classes deserted him and turned towards the 
invader, and the neglect with which he was personally treated, 
astounded him and he attempted no further resistance. He 
opened negotiations with William, sent his wife and child to 
France, and at the same time made preparations to follow them. 
But he still hoped that in some way he might regain his position 
and power, and with a view to throwing everything into confusion 
in the meantime destroyed the writs of summons for parliament 



508 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and dropped the great seal into the Thames. Unfortunately, as 
he was on his way in disguise to take ship to go to France, he 
was recognized by some sailors and brought back to London. 
William did not want to make another royal martyr, so he gave 
orders that James should be furnished with every facility for a 
more successful flight. At the same time he hastened his march 
to London. December 18, 1688, James left for France, and on 
the same day William took up his dwelling at Whitehall. 

There had been riots in London and the country was without 
any regular government. It was necessary, therefore, to do some- 
thing to reestablish order immediately. William called together 
the members of the House of Lords, all the members who had 
sat in the House of Commons during any of the parliaments of 
Charles II, and a number of the leading men of London, and 
asked their advice as to what should be done. They advised 
the calling of a convention, which, as in 1660, would be a parlia- 
ment in all respects except that the summons which called it 
together would lack the signature and the seal of the king. This 
was done. William sent letters to all the county and town author- 
ities, and a body was elected and gathered at London that was a 
parliament in everything except name. 

458. William and Mary elected to the Throne. — After long 
debates a resolution was passed by this convention declaring that 
" King James II, having endeavored to subvert the constitution 
of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between the 
king and the people,' and having by the advice of Jesuits and 
other wicked people violated the fundamental laws and withdrawn 
himself out of the kingdom, the throne is thereby vacant." This 
declaration was not very logical and not strictly true. James had 
not abdicated the government, and his withdrawal was not the 
result of his violation of the laws, but of an armed invasion. But 
there were so many men in the convention who had preached and 
taught and forced others to acknowledge that resistance to the 
king was wrong under any circumstances that it was hard now for 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 16S8 509 



them to find any very logical excuse for their action in resisting 
the king. By common consent consistency was ignored and the 
doctrine of nonresistance quietly abandoned. The really impor- 
tant declaration of the resolution was that made in its last clause, 
that the throne was vacant. 

This being so, the convention passed a bill offering the crown 
to William and Mary as joint sovereigns, the adminstration of the 
government to be in the hands of William. With this offer they 
combined a declaration of rights enumerating the actions of the 
late king which they considered 
illegal, and stating their expecta- 
tion that the new king and queen 
would agree to the parliamentary 
view of them. William and Mary 
accepted the crown on these 
terms and February 13,1 689, were 
proclaimed king and queen of 
England. 

459. The Revolution of 1688. 
— The deposition of James II 
and the elevation of William and 
Mary to the throne by act of 
parliament are known as- the 
" Revolution of 1688." The revo- 
lution was a final victory of parliament and the people whom 
parliament represented over the principle of absolute monarchy. 
The new king and queen and their successors were on the throne 
because parliament had placed them there, not by "divine right." 
They had received the crown on certain conditions which were 
set forth in the very document which granted to them their 
authority as sovereigns. In the future they could not act inde- 
pendently of parliament, because the same power that had placed 
them on the throne could exercise control over them when on 
the throne. The revolution therefore settled forever that the 




William 



510 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

will of the ruler must be subject to the will of the people as 
expressed in parliament. 

In other respects the "Glorious Revolution," as it is often 
called, accomplished less than has been sometimes claimed for it. 
No new classes were given the right to vote and there was no 
effort to represent the people more completely in parliament. It 
brought few if any advantages to the common people. It was a 
very successful revolution, but not one that extended very deeply 
or affected very many of the interests of the people. Nor was it 
a very high-minded revolution. The general desertion of James 
by the army, the nobles, and gentry, and even by those who owed 
all their fortunes to him and who had been in daily intercourse 
with him, was ungenerous and disloyal. Many of those also who 
now betrayed him and took the part of William, afterwards, when 
there seemed some possibility of his return to England, made 
secret agreements with him by messenger or letter, promising to 
give him their aid if he should get back. Thus they were twice 
betrayers. Among the men who carried out the Revolution of 
1688 there was little or none of that devotion to high principles 
and ideals which governed the Puritans who resisted Charles I in 
the Long Parliament, and the royalists who sacrificed property 
and life to the support of the king in the Great Rebellion. 

460. The Bill of Rights. — After the new king and queen had 
been crowned they transformed the convention into a regular par- 
liament, and it proceeded to pass various bills. The most impor- 
tant of these was the "Bill of Rights," which was a reenactment 
in the form of statute law of the declaration of rights accepted by 
William and Mary the year before. Some of the most important 
of the thirteen clauses of the act were the following : 

That the pretended power of dispensing with laws or the execution of 
laws by regal authority, as it hath been assumed and exercised of late, is 
illegal. 

That it is the right of the subjects to petition the king; and all com- 
mitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 511 

That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time 
of peace, unless it be with the consent of parliament, is against law. 

That election of members to parliament ought to be free. 

That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in parliament 
ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of par- 
liament. 

That excessive bail ought not to be required nor excessive fines imposed 
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

And that for redress of all grievances and for the amending, strengthen- 
ing, and preserving of the laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently. 

The Bill of Rights of 1689 should be classed with the Great 
Charter of 12 15 and the Petition of Right of 1628 as the three 
most important and fundamental documents which define the 
English constitution. It has also been copied into the amend- 
ments to the constitution of the United States and into various 
other written constitutions. But it must always be remembered 
that the English constitution is not a written document like that 
of the United States and those of most other modern countries. 
The English constitution is merely the form of government of 
England, and this has been a matter of gradual growth, some- 
times settled by definite laws, more often defined only by custom. 
Originally the king had practically all rights and powers of govern- 
ment, and the three great laws mentioned above are so important 
because they have restricted the despotism or the misgovernment 
of the king, and thus allowed the people to govern themselves 
through parliament and in accordance with law. 

461. Annual Taxes and the Mutiny Act. — Some other ques- 
tions of dispute or doubt were settled immediately after the 
revolution in such a way as to increase the powers of parlia- 
ment. A large proportion of the taxes which had formerly been 
granted for the king's life were now authorized only for a year 
at a time. William was very angry at this restriction, but finally 
accepted it. Since that time, although no formal statute has 
been passed requiring that parliament should meet every year, 
an annual meeting is practically necessary, for if parliament did 



512 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

not meet the taxes could not be collected and there would be 
no money to pay the ordinary expenses of government. 

Still in the same year, 1689, the Mutiny Act was passed for 
the organization and discipline of the army. It consisted of a 
special act appropriating money for the payment of the troops, 
and authorizing the use of martial law for one year only. Since 
that time it has been renewed every year ; and here again, if 
parliament did not meet in any year, the army could not be held 
together, at least legally, for there would be no martial law in 
existence. Parliament thus secured control of the army and at 
the same time made its own annual summons certain. 

462. The Toleration Act. — The old religious questions were 
brought somewhat nearer a solution. An attempt was made, as 
had been suggested and even tried several times before, to pass 
a Comprehension Bill. This was a plan to change the prayer 
book and the rules of the church in such a way as to make the 
Dissenters willing to conform to them. The established church 
would thereby have been made more comprehensive. But now, 
as before and since, no way could be found to accomplish it. 
No changes that the Episcopalians were willing to make went 
far enough for the Presbyterians and other Dissenters. In 
accordance with the promises of William and of leading church 
of England men, a toleration act was therefore passed, allowing 
the Dissenters to form congregations and worship publicly in their 
own way. It also allowed Quakers to affirm instead of having to 
take an oath. This toleration did not include Roman Catholics 
or any who did not believe in the divinity of Christ, nor did it 
allow any but church of England men to hold office. Neverthe- 
less even those who were not given formal freedom of worship 
were not persecuted. The times had changed ; a more tolerant 
spirit was growing up in all things. The Jews, after being 
excluded from England for centuries, had begun to come in, 
from the time of Cromwell, though without legal authorization, 
and they were by this time quite numerous. They were well 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 513 

treated, though not politically or socially recognized. Roman 
Catholics had their own services in private, and little by little 
began to resume a public and recognized existence. 

463. Liberty of the Press. — A few years after the revolution 
all restrictions on freedom of printing, except the ordinary libel 
and sedition laws, were taken off. This was not done with any 
great formality or realization of the greatness of the change. 
Various plans for the control of books and papers issued from 
the press had been tried since the invention of printing. At one 
time the Star Chamber issued ordinances and examined proposed 
publications ; at another the work was in the hands of the bishop 
of London. For a number of years acts of parliament had been 
passed from time to time, known as " licensing acts," which 
authorized the appointment of an official licenser without whose 
approval no book or newspaper could be published. In 1695 
parliament defeated the licensing act of the year, and none was 
ever afterwards introduced. The press, like religious worship and 
many other things, had become free with the downfall of the 
Tudor and Stuart arbitrary government and the widespread beliefs 
and feelings which had supported it. 

464. Summary of the Period from 1660 to 1689. — The resto- 
ration which took place in 1660 was not only a restoration of the 
old line of kings, it was a restoration of parliament, of the estab- 
lished church, and of old customs. People were glad to get back 
to their old habits, and accepted Charles II as part of the old con- 
dition of things. No restrictions were imposed upon him, but prac- 
tically his powers were very much limited. Just how great this 
limitation was it took all his reign and that of his brother to find out. 
At first there were no bounds to the loyalty of parliament and 
that of the majority of the people ; then there was a period when 
the favor shown to the Roman Catholics awakened the oppo- 
sition of parliament and the fears of the people ; after this came 
a third period in which parliament and the people, in their dread 
of a return of civil war, again turned to the support of the king. 



514 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Charles generally showed good judgment and ended his reign 
in peace and popularity. James showed very bad judgment. Be- 
tween 1685 and 1688 he exercised all the old arbitrary principles 
of government in an obstinate effort to put Roman Catholics 
on an equality with Protestants when the great majority of the 
people were entirely opposed to it. His deposition followed, 
and the election of William and Mary in 1 688 and the adoption of 
the Bill of Rights in 1689 marked the final success of parliament 
in its effort to control government. 

During the Restoration period the Anglican church was estab- 
lished still more firmly. Roman Catholics on the one hand and 
Dissenters on the other were shut out from all offices and even pro- 
hibited from worshiping according to their own ideas. Only after 
the revolution did parliament grudgingly pass a bill for toleration. 

In foreign affairs England held but a low position compared 
with what she had occupied under Elizabeth or Cromwell. 
Charles and James had both been willing to receive money gifts 
from the king of France rather than to assert the proper position 
of their country. 

General Reading. — Macaulay, History of England, Vols. I and II, is 
the standard history of this period. His brilliancy of description and 
grace of language are well known. His statements of fact are mainly 
correct, but his analysis of the characters and motives of men are not to 
be taken too seriously. They are usually the mere personal views of a 
man of a naturally partisan mind. He exaggerates the importance of 
the Revolution of 1688. Ranke, English History, Vols. Ill and IV, is a 
fairer history of the period. Green, Short History, chap, ix, sects. 1-7. 
Macaulay, Sir William Temple and Sir James Mackintosh are valuable- 
essays. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV, and Hale, T/.e 
Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe from 1678 to i6gy. Mahan, 
Influence of Sea Power upon History, chaps, i-iii. Abbot, W. C, " The 
Long Parliament of Charles II," in the English Historical Review, January 
and April, 1906, is an important article. 

Contemporary Sources. — Evelyn's and Pepys's Diaries are of great 
contemporary interest and value. The Bill of Rights is printed in Adams 
and Stephens, Select Documents, No. 239, and in Old South Leaflets, No. 19. 



RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION OF 1688 515 

Dryden, Annus Mirabilis, Absalom and Achitophel, and The Hind and the 
Panther, and Defoe, Histoiy of the Great Plague of London, are valuable. 
Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 308-334. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Scott, Peveril of the Peak, Old Mortality, The 
Pirate, and The Bride of Lam?nermoor belong to this period. Black- 
more, Lorna Doone ; Conan Doyle, Micah Clarke ; and Miss Yonge, The 
Danvers Papers, are stories of Monmouth's rising. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Great Fire, Pepys, Diary, September 22, 1666, 
and Evelyn, Diary ; (2) Scientific Knowledge in the Restoration Period, 
Traill, Social England, Vol. IV, pp. 403-408 ; (3) Literature of the 
Restoration, ibid., pp. 422-438 ; (4) the Pilgrim's Progress, Green, Short 
History, chap, ix, sect. 2 ; (5) Shaftesbury, ibid., sects. 4 and 5 ; (6) the 
Reaction from Puritanism, ibid., sect. 1 ; (7) the Massacre of Glencoe, Ken- 
dall, Source-Book, No. 102; (8) Influence of the Bill of Rights on the 
Constitution of the United States, Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, 
No. 239, or Old South Leaflets, No. \6, and Constitution of the United States, 
Amendments 1-10; (9) Coffee-houses, Colby, Selections from the Sources, 
No. 79. 




CHAPTER XVII 

THE PERIOD OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 
1689-1763 

465. The Battle of the Boyne. — William had to fight for his 
new crown. Although he was declared by the English parliament 
to be king of Scotland and Ireland as well as of England, his 
acknowledgment in those countries was not as easily obtained as 
it had been in England. Yet it was pretty certain that if James 
remained king of either Scotland or Ireland, he would soon re- 
gain the English crown as well, and William recognized that he 
must hold all three British countries or none. The most prompt 
and decisive struggle was in Ireland. The deposed king se- 
cured some aid from France and came over to Ireland, counting 
on the support of the Roman Catholic people of that country 
and of the officials whom he had appointed there before his 
deposition. He was not disappointed. When he arrived he 
found a volunteer army awaiting him. The Irish parliament 
acknowledged his claim and the whole country soon declared for 
him, except a few towns inhabited almost entirely by English 
and Scotch settlers. He tried to bring those to submission by 
force. Londonderry and Enniskillen, the two principal Protestant 
towns, were subjected to sieges, but showed noble endurance 
through months of close investment and repeated attacks. Soon 
William with his Dutch officers and veteran army came over to 
Ireland and marched to meet his rival. The two armies met at 
the river Boyne, July 1, 1690. A decisive battle was fought in 
which the army of James was defeated and scattered and he him- 
self forced to flee to France. 

Si6 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 517 

466. The Reconquest of Ireland. — James had not borne him- 
self very well in the field, and an Irish gentleman after the battle 
called to the English, " Change leaders with us and we will fight 
you again." But the revolt of Ireland was not dependent on his 
leadership. The spirit of liberty of the Irish people was aroused 
and they continued their resistance to William on their own 
account, even after James had retired to the continent. William 
seized Dublin and besieged and captured a number of Irish towns, 
but his army suffered much from the long sieges, the bad weather, 
and the attacks of the Irish army, which was led by an able and 
beloved Irish officer, Patrick Sarsfield. In the fall William had 
to return to England, but the next year, 1691, those whom he had 
left behind finally scattered the Irish army and captured Limerick, 
the last important Irish city to hold out. Ireland was thus once 
more conquered, as she had been so often before, after an unsuc- 
cessful struggle for independence. Her struggle in this case was 
not, however, an entire failure. In order to obtain the surrender 
of Limerick, Ginkell, the Dutch general commanding the English 
army, had been forced to grant very favorable terms. All the Irish 
who wished to go over sea and enter the French service were 
allowed to do so. About twelve thousand Irishmen, many of 
them noblemen and officers, took advantage of this opportunity 
and frequently afterwards fought against the English as part of 
the French army. The history of Ireland was much influenced 
by this emigration. After this time the natural leaders of her 
people were gone, and the names of Irish families became promi- 
nent in the annals of France, Spain, and other Roman Catholic 
powers on the continent, while Ireland herself remained to a 
great extent a nation of peasants. 

In the second place it was agreed in the treaty that the Irish 
should be allowed to exercise their own religion, as in the reign of 
Charles II, when the Roman Catholics had been put practically 
on an equality with the Protestants. This part of the agreement 
was not carried out. An Irish parliament, which now included 



£l8 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

only Protestants, protested against this clause, and William dis- 
owned it. Limerick has since been known to Irishmen as " the 
city of the broken treaty." For more than a century to come the 
Catholic population of Ireland was terribly oppressed and perse- 
cuted by the English government and by the small minority of 
Protestant settlers in Ireland of English or Scotch birth. 

467. Resistance in Scotland; the Massacre of Glencoe. — In 
Scotland a parliament, somewhat irregularly constituted, accepted 
the revolution and acknowledged William. Episcopacy, which 
had lately been reintroduced, was immediately abolished and 
Presbyterianism and the Westminster Confession reestablished. 
But some of the nobles and^pthers refused to agree to the depo- 
sition of James, seceded from parliament, and dashed away to the 
north to rouse the Highlanders in favor of the old king. 1 William 
sent an army to Scotland to meet them, but the Highlanders 
defeated it at Killiecrankie. The leader of the Jacobite army, 
Viscount Dundee, was, however, killed on the battlefield, and the 
army soon afterwards went to pieces. W T ith great shrewdness 
William's government distributed a considerable sum of money 
among the poor Scottish clan chieftains and thus detached them 
from their party. Edinburgh Castle was held for awhile by the 
adherents of James, but it finally surrendered and by the year 
1 69 1 all open resistance ceased in Scotland as it had in Ireland. 

One unfortunate scene of the drama remained to be played. 
A proclamation was issued requiring all those who had risen 
under Dundee to lay down their arms and take an oath of alle- 
giance to the new king by the last day of the year 1691, or else 
be treated as rebels in arms against the government. This was 
yielded to with more or less willingness by almost all the high- 
land clans. But the head of one small branch of the McDonalds, 

1 This created the " Jacobite " party, so called from Jacobus, the Latin 
form of the name James. The well-known song " Bonnie Dundee " refers 
to this occurrence. Many other stirring Scotch songs express the senti- 
ments of the Jacobites. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 519 



living in a valley called Glencoe, had in a spirit of defiance post- 
poned making his submission till the very last day, so as to be 
known as the last man to submit. Then he was astonished and 
alarmed to find that there was no one in reach who had the power 
to receive his oath. He was forced to make a long trip through 
the snow-covered mountains, and only succeeded in reaching 
Inverary and inducing the sheriff to receive his oath on the 6th 
of January. This somewhat belated submission might certainly 
have been pardoned under the circumstances. Instead a punish- 
ment was meted out to the neglectful clan which has ever since 
remained one of the 
dark spots in history. 
Like other Scottish 
clans, they had in 
times past swept 
cattle from the low- 
lands and killed men 
in the contests con- 
nected with such ex- 
peditions, and thus 
made themselves 
chargeable with other 
crimes besides that 

of the delayed submission. A warrant was signed by William 
authorizing the extermination of the whole body of inhabitants 
of Glencoe, — about a hundred and fifty persons. Soon afterwards 
a regiment of soldiers appeared in the glen under the command 
of a member of a rival clan, but a relative of the wife of McDonald, 
and acting in every respect in a friendly way. They were received 
unsuspectingly by the clansmen and lived in their houses as their 
guests amid much merrymaking for two weeks. Then early one 
morning the soldiers, in obedience to the orders of their officers, 
fell suddenly upon those who had so lately been their hosts, and 
proceeded to kill men, women, and children indiscriminately. In 




Glencoe : the Scene of the Massacre 



520 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the bloody massacre some forty or fifty were killed outright ; as 
many more, principally women and children who escaped in the 
darkness, died of cold and starvation on the desolate mountains ; 
while the others escaped altogether. Their houses were then 
plundered and burned and their cattle driven off. The responsi- 
bility for the massacre of Glencoe has been the subject of much 
discussion. The immediate action was certainly due to Sir John 
Dalrymple, Master of Stair, the king's principal minister in Scot- 
land, who was hostile to the McDonald clan and took this 
opportunity for revenge. Yet William signed the order, and 
although all the facts may not have been told him, and he may 
have relied on the judgment of his advisers, he made himself 
responsible for the action by supporting the perpetrators of it. 
The whole story of treachery and cold-blooded atrocity is rather 
to be looked upon as sad testimony to the barbarity of the times 
than proof of the especial cruelty of any one man. 

468. England and France. — Ireland and Scotland had been 
secured by William, but the deposed king had an ally in Louis XIV 
of France, who now determined to give him help to invade Eng- 
land itself. War with France was inevitable, even if James had 
not sought and obtained help from that country in his effort to get 
back the throne. Feeling in England had long been rising slowly 
into a settled hostility to France. This was due to three causes. 
First, France had become the protector of the Roman Cath- 
olics of Europe, as Spain had been a century before, and had 
threatened to assist Charles and James in emancipating the Eng- 
lish Roman Catholics. Secondly, England and France were 
brought into conflict by the jealousy between their colonists in 
India and America. Thirdly, the English shared to a certain 
extent that general feeling of alarm in Europe at the steadily 
growing military and naval power of France which threatened to 
make the whole of Europe dependent on that country. 

The accession of William of Orange to the crown of Eng- 
land, therefore, precipitated a war which was already imminent 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 521 

William had long been the special champion of resistance to the 
overweening ambition of France, and as stadtholder of Holland 
he had been engaged for years in a deadly conflict with Louis XIV. 
The help given by Louis to James transformed this contest, which 
William was waging on general European principles, into a national 
English struggle. War with France was from this time forward a 
repeated occurrence. The first of these struggles began immedi- 
ately. William having declared war at the request of parliament, 
an alliance was formed comprising the somewhat unfamiliar allies, 
England, Holland, Spain, and the German Empire. Hostilities 
had already begun when the alliance was signed. 

469. First War with France. — While the struggles had been 
taking place in Ireland and Scotland the French had sent a fleet 
of eighty vessels to attack the coast of England on their own 
account as well as in the interests of James. In 1690 they gained 
a victory over a combined Dutch and English fleet off Beachy 
Head and burned part of the town of Teignmouth. Two years 
afterwards another French fleet, still larger and better equipped, 
met an English fleet near La Hogue on the French coast. This 
time the English, after a three days' battle, were victorious, the 
French fleet was scattered, and England saved from invasion. 
This was the greatest naval battle since the Armada. It was a 
doubly important victory, for it discouraged Louis, who after this 
more and more neglected the navy for his armies, and the English 
and Dutch fleets protected the Channel without difficulty. 

England was now safe from invasion, and the later battles were 
for the general objects of the war, and not merely to keep the new 
king on the throne. These battles were fought on the continent, 
on the border between France and the Netherlands, William being 
in command of the allied armies. Successive battles went in 
favor of the French, though William was so skillful in reorganizing 
his defeated troops that the French obtained comparatively little 
advantage from their victories. William was able to keep troops 
in the field for an -indefinite time, for he was provided plentifully 



522 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

with money from England. This made it possible to block the 
progress of the French, who were finding it more and more diffi- 
cult to secure funds for their constant and expensive warfare. In 
1695 William was successful in capturing from the French the city 
and fortress of Namur in the Netherlands. It was the first time 
in fifty-two years that the French had lost a battle or allowed one 
of their fortified towns to be captured, and it indicated that the 
tide of success was turning against them, at least for the time. 
Two years afterwards, therefore, in 1697, a general European 
peace was agreed upon. The treaty is known as the " Peace of 
Ryswick," from the little Dutch town where it was signed. It was 
on the whole favorable to William, as by it he was recognized as 
king of England, and the French surrendered to their previous 
owners all the places which they had conquered during the war. 

470. Personal Position of William. — William was less successful 
in obtaining the affection and loyalty of his English subjects than 
he was in securing his position on the throne and in carrying out his 
designs in Europe. He was, in the first place, a foreigner, and 
the English have never been fond of foreigners. • He was a cold, 
silent, almost gloomy man, without any of that cheerful humor 
and habit of pleasantry which had gained popularity for many an 
English sovereign who had few other claims to the good will of 
his subjects. He was hard-working, true to his word, patriotic, 
and wise ; but he was so deeply interested in his statesmanlike 
projects that he had little time for those lighter interests which 
make up an attractive royal court and even interest and please 
those classes which have little part in them. He was valued and 
respected in England, but never loved or received with enthusi- 
asm. Six years after William and Mary had been crowned the 
queen died, to the king's sincere sorrow and to the loss of much 
of the affection in which they had both been held for her sake. 
Almost the only permanent memorial of Mary's part in the govern- 
ment is the foundation of Greenwich Hospital. Charles II had 
begun the building of a grand palace at Greenwich on the Thames 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 523 

a few miles below London, but it had never been finished. Its 
situation did not suit William's delicate health, and the queen 
took up the task of completing it, and then endowed it as an 
asylum for disabled sailors. 

William's position as king was probably as unattractive to him 
as his personality was to his subjects. He did not trust the 
English noblemen and ministers who surrounded him, and his 
distrust was fully justified. His lack of popularity had made it 
seem possible at various times that he might either lose his throne 
or abdicate it voluntarily. A number of the prominent men of 
the country, therefore, tried to make good their future fortunes by 
giving secret promises to James to bring about his return, if there 
should prove to be any chance of it. William learned of these 
instances of secret offers of assistance to James one after another, 
till he felt that there was no one at the court whom he could trust 
except his own Dutch friends and officers. These he advanced to 
highly paid places and rewarded with titles and estates. By this 
action he still further increased the discontent of Englishmen. 

Besides these men who were trying to carry water on both 
shoulders a Jacobite party existed, consisting of those who had 
never favored the expulsion of James or were now for one reason 
or another strongly in favor of his return. They had a standing 
offer from the king of France to send over troops if they would 
first bring about an insurrection in England, but the whole reign 
of William drifted by without any good opportunity arriving. In 
1696 a Jacobite plot to assassinate him was discovered and several 
men were tried and executed. The general preference of the 
nation for William and his system of government was shown at 
this time by the " Association," which was signed by thousands 
throughout the country, as was done when Elizabeth was threatened 
with assassination, declaring that, in case he was murdered the 
signers would support the princess Anne, not James. 

471. Political Position of William. — William had frequently 
to feel the tight rein kept upon him by parliament. In most 



524 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



countries of Europe the king at this time was a ruler with unlim- 
ited powers. In England the rebellion and the revolution had 
placed the center of gravity of government in parliament, not in 
the king. Parliament was by no means loath to use the newly won 
extension of its powers. The Bill of Rights, the yearly grant 
of the revenue, and the passage of the Mutiny Act showed its 
intention to restrict the powers of the king. The moment the 
Peace of Ryswick was signed parliament insisted on a reduction 
of the army. It did not like its expense, and according to 
old experience dreaded its retention lest it should give the king 
greater personal powers. William believed that the keeping up 
of a large army was necessary to force Louis 
to keep the treaty and to be ready for the 
next war which should break out. He had to 
give way, however, and the army was reduced 
to seven thousand men, leaving out of the 
service even the Dutch guards of the king. 
William was so vexed that he seriously planned 
to abdicate the throne and return to Holland. 
Parliament also remonstrated against and 
even withdrew grants of crown land which 
William had lavishly made to certain Dutch 
military officers, ministers, and favorites in his service. The com- 
plicated treaties into which he had entered with foreign countries 
were also much criticised in parliament, and four of his ministers 
were impeached by the House of Commons, though they were 
supported and protected by the House of Lords. 

472. Party Government. — The power of parliament was no 
doubt made greater by the existence of the two great political 
parties. Usually either the Whigs or the Tories had a decided 
majority in the House of Commons, and it acted in important 
matters according to the principles or the policy of that party. 
The Tories wanted peace abroad and the continued control of the 
established church and of the landholding gentry at home. The 




Royal Arms of Wil- 
liam and Mary, in- 
cluding the Lion of 
Holland 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 525 

Whigs, who were in a majority during the early part of William's 
reign, were more inclined to keep up the army and the foreign 
war, to extend toleration in religion, and to favor the interests of 
the merchant class. In lesser matters parliament did not act very 
consistently, because the attendance was apt to be irregular and 
few devices had yet been invented to keep the majority together. 
■At first William, like Washington in his first administration, chose 
his ministers from both parties, on the ground that both parties 
had joined to bring him into power. But the plan did not work 
well. There were constant disputes among the ministers and 
they did not get along well with parliament. In 1694, at the 
suggestion of Sunderland, a shrewd statesman, he dismissed the 
Tories and chose his ministers from the Whig party alone. 

Now the ministers and the majority in parliament were of the 
same party, and everything went along much more smoothly. The 
Whig members of parliament attended more regularly, because if 
they did so, and thus helped the ministers, they were rewarded by 
appointments to office and other favors. If the ministry found 
the Whig majority in parliament becoming slender, they could 
and unfortunately did keep it together for some time longer by 
paying members to vote for the measures they wanted passed. 
The practice of bribery was on the increase. Ministers not only 
gave bribes to members of parliament but also got rich them- 
selves by receiving bribes for their favor. 

By choosing all his ministers from one party for the purpose 
of getting along better with parliament, William probably did not 
realize that he was making them his masters and putting still 
more power into the hands both of ministers and of parliament. 
But he soon discovered that he had done so. When the Tories 
obtained a majority in parliament and insisted on a change of 
policy, the king, in order not to be in constant conflict with parlia- 
ment, found it necessary to allow the most prominent of his Whig 
ministers to resign and to appoint Tory ministers in their places. 
On the other hand, when a group of ministers of the same party 



526 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

as the majority in parliament gave any advice to the king he 
found himself practically compelled to take it. He could not 
carry out plans against the wishes of his ministers, and he could 
not now very well choose new ministers, because they would be 
of the opposition party and would not be able to get along with 
parliament. The ministers were coming to have power even over 
the king through being the representatives of the majority of 
parliament. 

473. The Cabinet. — Still another advance in the power of the 
ministers was being unwillingly conceded during the same time. 
Under Charles II, as has been seen, it had become usual for the 
king to dismiss individual ministers who became obnoxious to 
parliament. Under William and Mary, as just described, it had 
become usual for all the ministers to be of one party and for all 
to resign when their party lost its majority in parliament. It now 
became customary for a certain number to hold together and to be 
consulted together by the king. The first conspicuous instance of 
this was the group known as the " Whig Junto." After William 
had decided to have all his ministers of one party he regularly 
consulted the four who held the highest positions and in whom he 
had the greatest confidence. In earlier times the king had con- 
sulted the ministers, as in the case of the " Cabal," separately, not 
as a body ; or if he consulted them in a group, it was the larger 
body known as the " Privy Council " which he called together. 
Now, however, it was a small group of influential ministers who 
met frequently for purposes of conference with the king or for 
consultation among themselves. Although this practice was by 
no means invariably followed afterwards, yet it was never long 
given up. It grew more and more to be the regularly established 
custom that a certain number of the king's ministers should form 
a sort of council, and that they should act together after once 
being appointed, and resign together when they were opposed by 
parliament. This was the earliest form of the cabinet, which has 
now become such an important part of the English government. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 527 

474. The National Debt. — Notwithstanding all the disorder 
and civil wars of the seventeenth century, England had been 
growing rich. Commerce had brought into existence a class of 
wealthy men, especially in London and the other large cities, who 
possessed larger amounts of capital than had been known before. 
This money was drawn upon by the government not only by taxa- 
tion but also by borrowing. Loans were authorized by parliament, 
and those who lent to the government were assured of receiving 
the interest on their loans by a guarantee of the income from 
certain taxes. The permanent national debt of England began 
in 1692, when parliament authorized the treasury to borrow a 
million pounds. From this time forward the government has paid 
the interest on all that it has owed, but has made no attempt to 
repay all that it has borrowed, and has even borrowed more 
money from time to time whenever it has had any special need. 
When any person to whom the government owes part of its debt 
wishes the money, he simply sells his claim to some one else who 
has money to loan and is willing to take over the bond of the 
government. Thus the national debt has become a permanent 
institution and has always been a popular and safe form of invest- 
ment. 

475. The Bank of England. — In 1 694 the Bank of England was 
founded. Before this time large amounts of money were usually 
deposited with the London goldsmiths, who had strong vaults 
and a high reputation for honesty. But a safer place of deposit 
and one more specially suited to its purpose was evidently needed 
for the large sums now being used in business. As the war with 
France dragged on, the government also needed to borrow more 
money for its expenses. A plan was suggested by a Scotchman 
named William Patterson, who was a member of parliament and 
also a friend of the chancellor of the Exchequer, by which these 
two needs were fulfilled and certain other advantages reached at 
the same time. Following his plan a number of wealthy mer- 
chants formed a company and agreed to loan the government 



528 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



;£i, 200,000 at 8£ per cent interest, and were in return granted a 
charter allowing them to establish, under certain regulations, a 
bank to receive deposits, loan money, and carry on a general 
banking business. This constituted the Bank of England. The 
bank has been rechartered by parliament time and time again, 
and the rules under which it has been allowed to act have been 
repeatedly changed. It has been the financial agent of the Eng- 
lish government in all its larger money operations and its stock 
has been one of the most common forms of investment in Eng- 
land. It was later allowed to issue a certain amount of paper 




ihe Bank of England 

money, and Bank of England notes are the familiar form of paper 
currency. Its building was placed in the heart of the city of 
London and has been enlarged repeatedly until it has come to 
be one of the most conspicuous objects of the great city. It is 
sometimes called the' "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," from 
the name of one of the streets on which it borders. 

476. The Act of Settlement. — After the death of Mary the 
question of the succession to the crown came up. William and 
Mary had no children and William did not marry again. All 
the children of Anne, Mary's sister, had died. It was evident, 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 529 

therefore, that, although Anne would succeed William, some 
further arrangements would have to be made as to who should 
succeed her. The " Act of Settlement " was adopted by parlia- 
ment in 1 701 to settle this and other difficulties. It passed over 
all the near relatives of Mary and Anne, because they were 
Roman Catholics, and arranged that the crown on the death of 
Anne should go to her second cousin Sophia, electress of Hanover, 
granddaughter of James I. 1 Sophia was the nearest relative who 
was a Protestant and therefore satisfactory to most Englishmen. 

While the succession to the crown was being arranged by this 
act occasion was taken to include in it a number of provisions 
of constitutional importance. These were on points which had 
not been thought of when the Bill of Rights was drawn up, or 
which were suggested by recent occurrences or by the anticipated 
coming of a foreigner to the throne. In future, according to this 
act, every ruler of England must be a member of the church of 
England, he. must not marry a Roman Catholic, nor may he 
declare war on behalf of his foreign dominions. According to its 
terms judges hold their offices during good behavior and can be 
removed only at the petition of both houses of parliament. No 
pardon granted by the king can stand in the way of an impeach- 
ment by the House of Commons. Other provisions were intended 
to prevent favoritism to foreigners, to restrict the influence of 
government officers in parliament, to lessen the authority of the 
cabinet, and to strengthen that of the old privy council. 

477. War of the Spanish Succession. — During the later years 
of William's life clouds were gathering for another great war in 

1 James I 
, I , 



Charles I Elizabeth, married the elector 



of the Palatinate 

1 I 

Charles II James II Sophia, married the 

elector of Hanover 



Jan 



Mary Anne James George I 



530 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Europe. The king of Spain was weak-minded and had no chil- 
dren or other near relatives. There was great probability that 
a part or the whole of his widely scattered dominions in Europe 
and America would either come into the possession of Louis XIV 
of France or come under his influence by being bequeathed to 
a member of his family. This would enormously increase the 
already great French power in Europe ; and it was therefore to 
the interest of other nations to prevent such a settlement. The 
rulers of the other countries of Europe also hoped themselves 
to obtain part or the whole of the Spanish inheritance. Two suc- 
cessive treaties between England, France, and the other countries 
interested were formed under William's influence, known as the 
"partition treaties," to arrange the division of the Spanish domin- 
ions peacefully. When the king of Spain died, however, it was 
found that he had left Spain and the great bulk of his dominions 
to the grandson of the king of France. The ambassador at Paris 
said "There are no more Pyrenees." Louis threw over the parti- 
tion treaty and prepared to fight for his grandson's claims. Other 
countries declared their opposition to this increase of the power 
of France, and the long War of the Spanish Succession broke out. 
478. The Grand Alliance. — This war began in 1701, but 
England was drawn into it only by later occurrences. Lying 
between France and the Dutch republic was a group of provinces 
then under the government of Spain and known as the " Spanish 
Netherlands." A number of towns in these provinces were 
heavily fortified and occupied by garrisons half Spanish, and 
half Dutch. They were known as the "barrier fortresses," being 
intended to protect the Spanish Netherlands in the first place and 
Holland in the second from invasion by the French. On the 
outbreak of the war, by a secret agreement between the French 
government and the Spanish parts of the garrisons, the Dutch 
were suddenly driven out and French garrisons introduced. The 
barrier towns thus became a point of attack instead of a defense 
to William and constituted an immediate danger to his Dutch 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 531 

dominions. William thereupon entered the struggle against 
Louis and signed a treaty known as the " Grand Alliance," 
— an agreement between England, Holland, and the Austrians 
to drive Louis out of the barrier fortresses and to prevent the 
union of France and Spain. At almost the same time Louis per- 
formed an act of hostility to the English people as marked as 
that against the Dutch. James II since his deposition had lived 
as an honored guest of the king of France in the palace of 
St. Germain, not far from Paris. Louis had nevertheless at the 
Peace of Ryswick recognized William as king of England. In 
1 70 1 James died and Louis immediately disregarded the treaty 
and roused the anger of all England by acknowledging the son of 
James as king of England, speaking to him as " your majesty," 
and inviting him to visit him in state as if he were a brother 
monarch. This young man, whose name was James and whom 
his followers called " James III," became known in England from 
this time forward as the " Pretender." x When parliament met 
the Whigs proved to be in a majority, and intense indignation 
was expressed that the king of France had recognized as king one 
whose claims had just been distinctly rejected by the English 
parliament in the Act of Settlement. On the strength of this feel- 
ing, combined with the former causes for hostility to France, 
England went heartily into the war. The army was raised to 
forty thousand men, the navy brought into good condition, and a 
large amount of money appropriated for their expenses. 

William did not live to take the lead of these troops in the 
field, as he had anticipated. Early in the year 1702 he was injured 
by a fall from his horse and soon afterwards died. Anne then 
became queen. 

479. Marlborough. — William before his death had placed tem- 
porarily at the head of the united English and Dutch forces a 

1 In later times when his son, Charles Edward, came to fight for his 
father's claims and his own they were called respectively the " Old Pre- 
tender " and the " Young Pretender." 



532 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



man who was destined to win far higher military glory and suc- 
cess than his own. John Churchill, now earl and afterwards duke 
of Marlborough, was one of the courtiers of James II who had 
been taken into favor by William, enriched by the grant of estates, 
ennobled, and employed in many duties for the government. He 
had seen much military service and shown brilliant abilities when 
acting as an officer in Ireland and in the Netherlands. He was 
not a man of high character and he had, like other courtiers and 
ministers of William, at one time made secret terms with James. 

When this was discovered he had been 
for a while deprived of all his offices 
and disgraced at court. William was 
not a man, however, to let good abil- 
ity be wasted when there was need for 
it, and men of military training and 
gifts were none too numerous at that 
time. Marlborough was therefore re- 
stored to favor and placed in command 
of the allied English and Dutch forces 
on the continent immediately under 
the king. 

William's death left him for the 
time with all the military power and 
responsibility in his hands. In military and foreign affairs it 
was Marlborough rather than the queen who was the real succes- 
sor of William. This resulted partly from the fact that he had 
directly and by means of his wife very great personal influence 
over the new queen. Anne was a good woman but not very 
bright, nor was she very strong-willed. Her husband, Prince 
George of Denmark, although he lived in England, was a for- 
eigner by birth and interests and a quite insignificant man who 
furnished her no guidance. During the early part of her reign, 
therefore, while Anne ruled England, it was Marlborough, and 
still more Lady Marlborough, who ruled the queen. In their 




Queen Anne 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 533 

private intercourse and correspondence Lady Marlborough ad- 
dressed the queen as " Mrs. Morley," while Anne addressed her as 
" Mrs. Freeman," and no deference or ceremony was practiced. 
In fact Lady Marlborough frequently criticized the queen so 
harshly as to reduce her to tears, and dictated to her just what 
she should do and say under certain circumstances. 

480. The Great Victories of the War. — Marlborough, who had 
been made by the queen captain general of all English forces 
wherever they might be, now proceeded to the Netherlands 
and in conjunction with other leaders of the allies worked out 
plans for the contest against the French. Year after year cam- 
paigns under various leaders were fought in the Netherlands, in 
southern Germany, along the Rhine, in Italy, in Spain, and in 
Asia and America. The fleets fought in the Channel, the Bay of 
Biscay, the Mediterranean, and the West Indies. Many sea and 
land battles were fought and both successes and reverses were 
numerous ; but year by year Marlborough himself gathered a har- 
vest of brilliant victories. Four great battles, fought respectively 
in the years 1704, 1706, 1708, and 1709, have become famous. 
They were those of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Mal- 
plaquet. The first of these was the culmination of a bold and 
skillful campaign in which Marlborough had fought his way 
through Germany till he had succeeded in uniting his troops with 
those of his Austrian and other allies near the little village of 
Blenheim on the Danube River in Bavaria. The French and 
their allies had gathered there to meet them, hoping in case of a 
victory to press on and capture Vienna. A bloody contest was 
fought between the two armies, each numbering more than fifty 
thousand men. It resulted in a brilliant victory for Marlborough 
and his allies, the destruction of a large part of the French army, 
the driving of the French permanently out of Germany, and a 
break in the tradition of their almost invariable success. Marl- 
borough, who had already been created a duke and granted a life 
pension of ^5000 a year, was now congratulated and thanked by 



534 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Anne and by both houses of parliament, and given the old royal 
manor of Woodstock, on which was built for him at public 
expense the great building which has always since been known as 
Blenheim palace. 

The victories of Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet were 
won in various parts of the Netherlands, which was necessarily 
the principal theater of the war, as it was the border land between 
France and Holland. The war went generally against the French, 
and at various times they offered favorable terms to close it. 
The members of the Grand Alliance, however, were anxious to 
win still further advantages, and Marlborough was not as wise an 
adviser in statesmanship as he was a brilliant commander in war. 
It was continued therefore at enormous expense and for doubtful 
advantages. 

481. Treaty of Utrecht, 171 3. — Even when peace was finally 
made the terms were neither so disadvantageous to France nor 
so honorable to England as might have been secured at an earlier 
time. In 1 7 1 1 the English ministers opened secret negotiations 
with the French king apart from their allies and agreed on all 
general points before they disclosed the matter to them. Finally 
the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 17 13. The French prince 
was allowed to keep the throne of Spain, where he had already 
been crowned and obtained the acceptance of most of his new 
subjects. France on the whole, however, lost territory and pres- 
tige, and even the close family alliance with Spain proved to be 
of but slight advantage to her. The Italian possessions of the 
Spanish crown were handed over partly to the Italian duke of 
Savoy, partly to the Austrian emperor. Austria also obtained the 
old Spanish Netherlands. Holland gained little except freedom 
from the constant threat of being invaded and conquered by 
France. 

England obtained greater advantages from the treaty than any 
other European country. Her gains were, however, not of Euro- 
pean territory, but almost all in the direction of that extension of 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 535 

her colonial empire and distant interests which was the most 
marked tendency of English growth during this period. On the 
continent of Europe she retained Gibraltar and Minorca, which 
had been captured by her fleet during the war. In America she 
obtained the recognition of her claims to Nova Scotia, Newfound- 
land, and the land around Hudson Bay, and one of the West 
Indian Islands. She also obtained a valuable commercial con- 
cession from Spain in the form known as the " Asiento Treaty." 

This gave her not only permission to take negro slaves from 
Africa to the Spanish West Indies, which had been a rather 
shameful object of struggle on the part of her merchants and 
sailors from the time of Queen Elizabeth, but also an actual and 
legal monopoly of the slave trade with the Spanish colonies for 
thirty years. She also obtained the right to send to Porto Bello 
annually one ship of six hundred tons burden loaded with goods 
to sell to the Spanish colonists. This entering wedge for trade 
with the Spanish colonies was valued and put to its fullest use by 
England shortly afterwards. 

Somewhat similar trading advantages in another direction were 
obtained by means of a treaty with Portugal, which has always 
been known as the " Methuen Treaty," from the name of the 
minister who arranged it. By its terms England agreed to admit 
port and other Portuguese wines into England at a rate of duty 
one third lower than she admitted those of France, while Portugal 
in return gave admission to English manufactured goods on very 
favorable terms. 

482. English Naval Supremacy. — England emerged from the 
War of the Spanish Succession with the strongest fleet in the 
world. The naval greatness of Spain had long since passed away. 
She was too poor, too badly governed, and too much occupied 
with contests on land to keep up a great navy. Indeed, after 
the loss of the Armada her fleet had never been brought up again 
to any considerable efficiency. The navy of Holland rose into 
prominence and strength when the long contest with Spain and 



536 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the necessities of her colonial dominions led her to make her- 
self a great naval power. The contests with England during the 
Commonwealth and early Restoration period had shown her fleet 
in its greatest development. But the long and expensive con- 
tests that the Netherlands had to wage on their land frontiers to 
protect themselves against Louis XIV had prevented them from 
keeping up their navy. Then in turn France, as part of her great 
national strength under that monarch, developed a great navy 
which was able to defeat or at least to cope on equal terms with 
that of England. But the enormous sums which had to be spent 
in her widely extended land wars left little means for keeping up 
a navy. England alone was in a position to continue the build- 
ing up of her naval power ; and for the sake of her colonies, her 
growing commerce, and the protection of her coasts from invasion 
she felt the necessity of doing so. At the time of the Treaty of 
Utrecht, therefore, England was far stronger on the sea than any 
of the other European powers, and she continued to hold this 
supremacy. It was not a period of great sea fights, and no victo- 
ries on the water were gained to correspond to Blenheim and 
other such victories on land, but England's predominant sea 
power was recognized by her rivals and carefully kept up by her 
own statesmen. 

483. Union with Scotland. — When James I had tried to induce 
the English and Scotch parliaments to unite more closely and to 
form one nation with the same laws, church organization, and 
government, as well as the same king, neither the Scotch nor 
the English were ready for any such union. It had taken them 
about a century to become so. Immediately after Anne came 
to the throne, in 1702, commissioners were appointed from both 
countries to arrange terms for a closer union. There was much 
difficulty in overcoming the obstacles in the way. The Scotch 
demanded the right to share in the commerce of England. Eng- 
lishmen, on the other hand, were very jealous of the trade which 
they had built up with their colonies and with other countries, 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 537 






and they were reluctant to admit any one else to share it. After 
long disputes, however, this and other questions were settled, and 
in 1707 the union was agreed to by both nations. There were 
no longer to be separate English and Scotch parliaments, but a 
joint parliament for what was now called the " Kingdom of Great 
Britain." Forty-five members were to be elected to the House 
of Commons from Scotch counties and boroughs, and sixteen 
peers were to be elected to the House of Lords by the .whole 
number of Scotch nobles. The "union jack" was at the same 
time adopted as the flag of the United Kingdom. It was formed 
by uniting the square red cross of England with the Scots' diagonal 
white cross of St. Andrew. 1 
The established church of 
Scotland remained presby- 
terian while that of Eng- 
land remained episcopalian. 
Besides the church, the 
common and statute law, 
the money and banking 
systems, the universities, 
and many other of the older Union Jack 

institutions of the countries remained separate, and there long 
remained, and indeed still remains, much difference of national 
feeling. It was but little more than the crown and the legis- 
latures which were combined, but this was sufficient to make 
their policy in all foreign and in many internal questions the 
same. 

484. Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. — Scotland was united 
to England on almost equal terms and received from the larger 
country the consideration due to a willing partner. Ireland, on 
the other hand, so far as the native Irish were concerned, remained, 

1 The -word jack is said to be derived from Jacques, the French form 
of the name James, James I having first planned a combined flag for the 
two nations. 




538 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

as she had always been, a conquered country, held down unwill- 
ingly by the superior power of England. A great many of her 
leading men, as before described, had emigrated and were making 
successful careers for themselves in the military or civil service 
of France and other Roman Catholic countries. The mass of the 
people of Ireland was therefore a poor and despised peasantry 
with a mere scattering of men of higher position and abilities, 
especially in the towns. 

Ireland was ruled partly in the interests of the English and 
Scotch settlers, partly in the interests of England herself. The 
Irish parliament consisted of Protestants only, which excluded 
probably four fifths of the population, since almost all those of 
native blood had clung to their Roman Catholic faith. This 
Protestant parliament from time to time passed harsh laws, 
usually described as the " penal laws," intended to keep down the 
Roman Catholics. Some of these laws had reference to property. 
The land belonging to a Roman Catholic must at his death 
be divided equally among his children, instead of all descending 
to the eldest son, as would usually occur if the father had been 
a Protestant ; if any one of the sons, however, became a Prot- 
estant, he received all the land, while his brothers, if Roman 
Catholics, received none. If parents with any property died leav- 
ing minor children, these were placed by law under the control 
of a Protestant guardian. Other laws concerned education. No 
Roman Catholic could enter the university, or be a schoolmaster, 
or send his child to a Roman Catholic school at home or abroad. 
The Irish Roman Catholics must either remain absolutely igno- 
rant or go to Protestant schools. A third group of penal laws 
referred to religion. The church of England had been made 
the established church of Ireland also, and although Presbyte- 
rianism was now allowed under the Toleration Act, Roman 
Catholic worship was not permitted. In 1703 a law was passed 
which enabled more than a thousand priests to perform service 
in their parish churches on being registered and supervised by the 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 539 

government. But they were required to take such oaths as made 
it impossible for them to perform many of their religious duties ; 
they were subject to heavy fines and penalties for trying to con- 
vert Protestants and for marrying Protestants to Roman Catholics. 
Roman Catholics were excluded from the right to hold office 
or to serve in positions of honor or trust. Many other laws were 
passed from time to time during the eighteenth century, either by 
the Irish or the British parliament, laying the most burdensome 
restrictions upon the native Irish people. 

485. Trade Laws against Ireland. — This oppression of the 
Roman Catholic Irish was imposed upon the great majority of the 
nation by a small minority, — the English and Scotch settlers. 
These Protestant settlers were enabled to keep down their coun- 
trymen by the assistance of England; but they in their turn 
had to recognize their inferior position when English trade inter- 
ests were endangered. The English government had no intention 
of allowing any industries to grow up in Ireland in the hands of 
either Roman Catholics or Protestants, which would interfere 
with the interests of England. The English parliament therefore 
prohibited the importation into England of any kind of cattle, 
meat, butter, or cheese from Ireland. A law was passed forbid- 
ding the export of Irish woolen manufactures to any country but 
England, and burdening even these with heavy duties, thus ruin- 
ing the Irish cloth manufacture for the greater prosperity of that 
of England. In many other ways Irish industry was restricted. 
This led to much discontent even among the English and Scotch 
Protestant settlers in Ireland, and to a steady emigration of many 
of them to America, where they made up a considerable part of 
the population of several of the colonies and became known as 
the " Scotch-Irish." 

486. Political Parties under Queen Anne. — Anne was by nature 
and training a high Tory. She was narrow-minded, conservative 
in all her feelings, and devoted to the established church. When 
she came to the throne the Tories had a majority in parliament. 



54Q 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Marlborough, not being closely identified with either party and 
wanting only to obtain support for the war and to retain his influ- 
ence over the queen, proclaimed himself also a Tory. At the 
beginning of the reign of Queen Anne, therefore, the condition 
of things was a peculiar one. The sovereign, the ministers, and 
parliament were all Tories, and yet they were carrying on a great 
foreign war, favoring commerce, and allowing Dissenters to increase 
their numbers and influence, all of which were Whig and not 
Tory principles. This had arisen partly from the personal influ- 
ence of William, partly from the peculiar condition of the times, 
which made the national interests stronger 
than party prejudices. 

Such a condition could not last very long. 
The interest of the nation in the war and the 
personal influence of Marlborough gradually 
forced the Tories out of office and their 
majority was lost in parliament. By 1705 a 
clear Whig majority had come into existence, 
Arms of Queen Anne and as Qne WMg minister after anot her was 

appointed to take the place of the Tories who resigned, Marl- 
borough declared himself a Whig. By 1708 the queen was 
forced to appoint a full Whig ministry, much as she disliked that 
party and its policy. 

The early part of the reign of Anne marks the period at which 
three customs, long growing, as already shown for two of them, 
became a settled part of the English constitution. • First, the 
sovereign must drop his or her own personal views on politics and 
appoint a ministry of the same party as the majority in parlia- 
ment. • Secondly, the ministry or cabinet must all be of the same 
party, and must act as a unit in all matters of general policy. 
Thirdly, the sovereign must sign a bill which has received the 
approval of the ministry and both houses of parliament. The third 
of these customs arises from the other two. If the sovereign refuses 
to sign a bill which the ministers recommend, they will resign their 




FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 541 

office; but the sovereign cannot appoint a ministry from the 
other party, because they would be in a minority in parliament. 
Therefore there would be no ministry and government could not 
go on. In 1707 occurred the last case in which the sovereign 
refused to sign a bill passed by parliament. Since that time the 
veto power has ceased to be exercised by the English kings. 
When a bill has been passed by parliament the sovereign signs it 
as a matter of course. 

The power of the Whigs did not last long. The nation was 
becoming weary of the war, the queen was becoming weary of 
Lady Marlborough, the ministry and the majority in parliament 
acted unwisely in impeaching a noisy Tory preacher of London 
named Sacheverell. A wave of popular excitement spread over 
the country, high church and royalist views were expressed every- 
where, the ministers were attacked, and in the next parliament 
they lost their majority. The Tories were again in power, at least 
so far as having the ministry, a majority in the House of Com- 
mons, and the sympathy of the queen extended. The House of 
Lords had still a small Whig majority. A bold stroke was now 
made. There was just one way in which a majority in the House 
of Lords could be changed. The sovereign has a right to create 
new noblemen when he or she thinks best. The ministers now 
asked Queen Anne to exercise this power by raising twelve men, 
all of whom were known to be Tories, to the peerage. They thus 
became members of the House of Lords and changed its majority 
to the same party as that to which the ministers and the major- 
ity of the House of Commons belonged. From this occurrence 
it became evident that just as the king has to give way in any con- 
test with parliament, so if at any time the two houses are strongly 
opposed to one another, the House of Lords may be forced to give 
way to the House of Commons. 

Several laws were now enacted to keep down the Whigs. The 
" Occasional Conformity Act "was intended to prevent the practice 
by which a Dissenter conformed to the church of England test 



542 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

on the one occasion when he entered upon his office, but at all 
other times attended his own church. The "Property Qualifica- 
tion Act " prohibited any one from being a member of parliament 
who did not have an income drawn from land amounting to at 
least £200 a year. The " Schism Act " made it necessary for 
every one to obtain a license from the bishop of his diocese 
before he could open a school. 

Some of the Tories went still farther in their opposition to 
the liberal policy in force since the revolution, and became 
out-and-out Jacobites. They opened up communications with 
the son of James II and offered to obtain the repeal of the Act 
of Settlement of 1701 and to endeavor to make him king on the 
death of Anne, if he would become a Protestant. He refused 
to barter his religion for a throne, and the Tory leaders knew 
very well that not even their own party, the country clergy 
and gentry, would accept a Roman Catholic king. While these 
plans were in progress Anne died suddenly, in 17 14, and an 
entire change came over all parties. 

487. Accession of George I. — The electress Sophia of Hanover 
had died a few weeks before Anne. Her son was immediately 
proclaimed king of England as George I, retaining his Hanove- 
rian dominions also. The " Four Georges " followed one another 
in succession, their reigns continuing through the whole remain- 
der of the eighteenth century and far down into the nineteenth. 

They were not gifted rulers or men of a very fine type, but the 
time had gone by when the personality of the king was of much 
consequence. The regular course of government would now be 
pursued and the desires of parliament carried out, no matter who 
sat upon the throne. With the exception of one short period, 
ministers looked to the majority in parliament, not to the king, 
for support. In other respects this was a period of great impor- 
tance for England, — a period in which she grew from an insular 
state to a great empire, and in which internal changes and strug- 
gles of the greatest interest took place. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 545 

company obtained an act of parliament authorizing them on pay- 
ment of an immense sum to take the whole national debt into 
their management. 

Speculation more reckless than any before or since in English 
history now began in this stock. Everybody believed that the 
plans must be all right, since the government approved of them. 
The directors officially promised large dividends, though there 
was really but a bare possibility that they could pay any at all. 
It was rumored that the government was arranging a treaty with 
Spain by which that country was to receive Gibraltar and Minorca 
and give England in return gold mines in Peru which were to be 
turned over to the South Sea Company. All classes of people 
were carried away by the passion for speculation. Country gentle- 
men sold the estates which had been in their families for genera- 
tions to buy shares of the South Sea Company and other stocks. 
Clergymen, dissenting ministers, courtiers, noblemen, literary men, 
poor widows, — all put their savings, their earnings, or their bor- 
rowings into stock, especially that of the favored South Sea Com- 
pany. The price of its shares rose and rose, and yet there were 
thousands anxious to buy them at any price. The stock finally 
sold at ten times its par value. 

This went on for some weeks. Then the excitement began to 
die down. People began to doubt whether they would get such 
large returns for their money as they had anticipated, and here 
and there began to sell their stock at less than they had paid for 
it. Then the bubble burst; men came to their senses and real- 
ized that there was no basis for all this nominal value, and that 
no commercial company could carry the national debt. Immedi- 
ately there was a panic. Everybody wanted to sell. Lenders of 
money could not get it back and failed in all directions. The 
stock fell in price to almost nothing. Thousands lost everything 
they had and were reduced to bankruptcy and ruin. 

490. Political Effects of the Panic. — Such periods of reckless 
speculation and subsequent loss have occurred frequently since. 



546 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The bursting of the " South Sea Bubble," as it has always been 
called, was conspicuous because it was one of the earliest and 
most complete, and because it brought into power a minister who 
was destined to be the practical ruler of England for the next 
twenty years. This minister was Robert Walpole. 

When the panic occurred losers naturally looked for some one 
to hold responsible. There was much bitterness expressed against 
the directors of the company, and one nobleman half seriously 
proposed that they should be sewed up in bags and thrown into 
the Thames. But it was upon the government that most blame 
was thrown, and to it men looked for relief. The ministers had 
certainly favored the company, encouraged and taken part in the 
speculation, and several of them were proved to have helped 
swindle the public. Those guilty of fraud were arrested and 
imprisoned, and even of those who were not accused one resigned, 
another died of heart disease during the excitement, and still 
another committed suicide. 

491. Ministry of Walpole. — Walpole was in one of the lower 
positions of the ministry. He belonged to a family of the 
lower gentry and had no connection with the noble Whig families 
which were so influential. He had been in parliament for many 
years and had been in the service of the government for a con- 
siderable time. He had there gained a high reputation for finan- 
cial ability. He had, however, fallen out with the more influential 
ministers and had been for some time reduced to unimportance. 
He had opposed them in their policy concerning the South Sea 
Company and had taken but a small part in the speculation 
himself. When it was felt that somebody was needed in office 
who could put things in order and who was in no degree respon- 
sible for recent occurrences, Walpole naturally came to mind as 
exactly the man for the place. He had been called " the best 
master of figures of any man of his time," and he was therefore 
in 1 72 1 appointed by the king first lord of the treasury and 
chancellor of the Exchequer. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 547 



By the plan which he brought forward the estates of the direc- 
tors of the South Sea Company were confiscated and turned into 
its treasury, all other resources were realized, the government 
resigned its claims against it, and the stockholders as a result 
received about one third of the par value of their stock. This 
did not reimburse private losers, but various other measures were 
taken to give them some relief. Every one felt that Walpole had 
brought order out of chaos and done all that could be done to 
put matters again on a firm footing with the least possible loss. 

By the credit of this achievement, by his great abilities, by his 
judicious policy, and by his long continuance in office Walpole 
became distinctly the most influ- 
ential of the ministers. With 
him began the prime minister- 
ship. Although there was even 
yet no office with that title, yet 
since the time of Walpole there 
has always been one minister 
who holds the most conspicuous 
place, gathers the others around 
him, confers with the king in 
their name, and in other ways 
holds them together. There had 
been royal favorites before this 
time, and there had been ministers of predominant influence, but 
none who for any length of time was acknowledged by his asso- 
ciates, by the king, and by parliament to have this leading posi- 
tion. Walpole now attained the position and held it without 
serious danger of its loss for more than twenty years. This 
occurred the more naturally because George I could speak no 
English and his ministers no German. All their intercourse, there- 
fore, had to be in Latin, which was spoken badly and with 
difficulty and dissatisfaction by all parties. The king therefore 
soon ceased to attend cabinet meetings and one of the ministers 




548 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

presided in his place. This was naturally the most influential 
minister and it made his position still more that of a leader. 

492. Policy of Walpole. — Walpole obtained the confidence of 
two successive kings, George I and George II, and parliament 
was usually easily persuaded to follow the plans he advised. The 
principal characteristics of the policy of the great Whig minister 
were the effort to keep peace abroad and to conciliate party dif- 
ferences at home. He strove to allay as far as possible the 
bitter political and religious conflicts which had divided men, so 
that the new line of kings might get quietly settled and the 
country become prosperous and contented. He was always mod- 
erate, reasonable, and cautious. With these views it naturally 
followed that he did not encourage any great changes, any bril- 
liant policy, or any conspicuous actions at home or abroad. His 
greatness was displayed in avoiding unwise actions during the 
quiet routine of government rather than in taking the leadership 
in stirring events during a period of action. This, indeed, was the 
general character of the eighteenth century. It was not a period 
marked by such conflicts on great matters as the Reformation in 
the sixteenth century or the Great Rebellion in the seventeenth. 
But England during this time was growing more moderate, reason- 
able, peaceful, and wealthy, and Walpole was the ideal leader for 
such a time. 

493. Parliamentary Corruption. — The higher motives of mem- 
bers of parliament and of the voters who elected them were seldom 
appealed to. Most matters that came up were questions of inter- 
est, not of conscience. In carrying through parliament the meas- 
ures in which they were interested the ministers did not find it 
very difficult, therefore, to gain men over by bribery or other 
corrupt means. This bad custom had been growing ever since 
the reign of Charles II, but it reached its height under Walpole. 
"All these men have their price," he once said to a friend, point- 
ing to a group of members of the House of Commons. The use 
of a large amount of secret-service money for purposes of bribery 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 549 

was reduced to a system under him. Appointments to office 
under the government were used for political purposes as a regu- 
lar custom. He made no effort to draw to his side orators or 
statesmen or the rising young men of ability and character. 
Instead he simply bought or bribed by office enough members to 
carry through the measures in which he was interested. Curiously 
enough, although Walpole carried on the government by a set 
system of bribery and corruption, he was himself quite free from 
mercenary motives and was never known to take a bribe. 

494. The Rising of the Young Pretender. — The justification of 
the policy of conciliation and of devotion to material pros- 
perity was given in 1745, when a second attempt was made to 
restore the Stuart line. Thirty years after the rising of the 
earl of Mar, Charles Edward Stuart, son of the "Old Pretender" 
and grandson of James II, tried his fortunes in an attempt to 
regain the throne of his ancestors. He came to Scotland accom- 
panied by only seven friends and appealed to the chiefs of the 
Highland clans to support his claims, as the descendant of the 
old Scotch kings, to the throne of that country. He was quite 
the opposite of his father, being young, handsome, brave, and 
hopeful. " Prince Charlie," or the " Chevalier," as he was 
called by his adherents, — the "Young Pretender," as he is 
called in more serious history, — found for the time his principal 
strength in his dignity and charm of manner, in the Highland cos- 
tume that he adopted, and in his confidence in his own success. 
His persuasiveness soon brought over the Highlanders, who were 
always ready for a raid into the Lowlands. He then marched 
straight to Edinburgh, gathering adherents as he went until he 
had several thousand followers. Here he had himself proclaimed 
king with the title of James VIII of Scotland, and gave a grand ball 
in the palace of Holyrood. But fighting could not be long post- 
poned. The regular army stationed in Scotland was under a spe- 
cially incompetent commander, Sir John Cope. In a few weeks 
a battle was fought at Preston Pans, in which Charles Edward 



550 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

was completely victorious, and for the next few months had Scot- 
land practically under his control. 

But Scotland could not be held without England. Troops 
were already marching north against him. He must attack or 
be attacked, and he was encouraged by the arrival of money 
and arms from France. Therefore, although many of the High- 
landers had returned to the mountains with their booty, the young 
prince was able to organize an army of six thousand men, and 
with this he crossed the border into England, hoping the people 
would rise to his support. But there was no sign of such a 
reception. The Tories who had preached the divine right of 
kings did not put their principles into practice. Jacobitism 
proved to be a very weak sentiment in the face of the practical 
dangers of a rebellion. A few recruits were found in the towns 
of Lancashire and a few of the clergy expressed their good will. 

On the other hand, there was no spontaneous action of the 
people against him. It was not a period of enthusiasm for any- 
thing, and most of the people took refuge in apathy, leaving 
resistance to the government. The government soon acted, how- 
ever, and by the time the prince and his followers had reached 
Derby, forces were gathered around them which made any farther 
advance mere recklessness. The militia had been called out to 
bar the way to London, and two armies were preparing to cut the 
invaders off if they went west into Wales or east into Yorkshire. 
Charles Edward was anxious to make a dash on London, but his 
more prudent advisers would not allow it, and although London, 
the king, and the ministers were badly enough frightened, the 
Highland army soon began its retreat to Scotland. 

They beat off various attacks from the government troops, but 
finally were brought to a decisive battle at Culloden Moor in 
Scotland, where the rebel army was crushed and scattered. The 
Young Pretender himself wandered for five months through the 
Highlands before there was an opportunity to escape. Though 
there was a heavy price set on his head, not a Highlander betrayed 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 551 

him, and finally he made his way to France. His later life was 
unworthy of his promise. He became dissipated and worthless. 
He died in 1788, and his younger brother, the last descendant 
of the male line of Stuart, died in 1808. The expedition of 1745 
had been hopeless and without excuse from the beginning, but 
the gallantry of its young leader at its opening and the courage 
and touching fidelity of his Scotch followers at the close have 
thrown over it a gleam of romance which is sorely lacking in 
other quarters in the eighteenth century. 

495. The Rise of Methodism. — The condition of religion at 
this time was much the same as that of politics. Little interest 
was taken in those controversies on theological questions which 
had been so intense during the time of the Stuarts. The religious 
excitement and personal devoutness which had been so common 
among the Puritans and even among some of the stricter church- 
men had almost disappeared. The general religious character of 
the time was cold, unspiritual, and formal. The clergy both of the 
established church and of the various dissenting sects taught good 
morals and preached sermons intended to prove the truth of 
Christianity, but they did not generally feel nor did they encour- 
age in others any very active or devout personal religion. Nor 
was there any missionary interest or active effort to give religious 
instruction or comfort to the increasing population of England or 
to the lower classes, except where these were already inhabitants 
of the rural parishes. 

Here and there, however, there were persons who felt attracted 
to a more earnest religious life. Of this character was a small 
group of students at Oxford in the years between 1729 and 1735, 
who were accustomed to meet for purposes of mutual improve- 
ment. They were of course members of the established church 
and were religious and ascetic to a degree then very unusual. 
They fasted during Lent and on every Wednesday and Friday of 
the year ; they discussed the Bible together ; they visited the sick 
and prisoners, and abstained from most of the common forms of 



552 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

amusement. They were much ridiculed by other students at 
the university, and were nicknamed " Methodists," from their 
methodical, strictly regulated manner of life. 

496. John Wesley. — Among these students were several men 
who were destined to carry their religious fervor into the broader 
world and to create a religious revolution in England. The most 
influential of them were two brothers, John and Charles Wesley, 
and George Whitefield. John Wesley, the leading spirit of the 
little society, was born in 1703, at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, and 
was the son of the rector of that parish. He was well educated, 
became a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and was ordained 
to the ministry in 1725. He was a man of strong religious nature, 
great determination, and clear intellect. He was deeply attached 
to the established church and at that time laid great stress on 
its forms and ceremonies. In 1735 ne left Oxford, and after 
varied experiences in the American colonies, in Germany, and 
in his own country, with his brother Charles and his friend 
Whitefield from the year 1738 he undertook continuous missionary 
work throughout England. Although clergymen of the established 
church they had no special parishes. When John Wesley was 
rebuked for having no regular charge he said, " The world is 
my parish." These three and others who joined in their work 
preached from the pulpits of the parish clergy wherever they 
obtained permission to do so, but their preaching and teaching 
were of a very different kind from what was usual at the time. 
Instead of calm instruction they introduced enthusiasm, excite- 
ment, violent warning, and appeal into their sermons. 

They also organized, among the men and women of the con- 
gregations to which they preached, societies similar to the old 
Oxford society, formed to keep up religious fervor and to help 
one another in their religious life. From the general similarity 
of these societies in plan and object all those who took part in 
them were called "Methodists," which soon became a well-known 
descriptive term, half of contempt, half of approval. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 553 



497. Separate Chapels and Field Preaching. — Many of the 
clergy refused to admit the Wesleys or Whitefield into their pul- 
pits, objecting to this irregular, unusual, and disorderly preach- 
ing, which brought hundreds into the churches who had never 
been seen in them before and broke up the decorum and routine 
of ordinary church life. The Methodists thereupon built separate 
chapels as places where itinerant preachers might speak when 
they were refused the use of the parish church. These chapels 
soon became permanent places of worship. For service in them 
men who were not regularly educated and ordained, but who 
proved to be well suited to make the 
emotional appeals of Methodist preach- 
ing, were approved by Wesley and 
other leaders as lay preachers. 

Still other customs resulted directly 
from the exclusion of the Methodist 
preachers from the established 
churches. When Whitefield went to 
Bristol on a missionary visit he could 
not find a single church in which he was 
allowed to preach. He heard that not 
far from that city there were many 
thousand coal miners and their fami- 
lies who had practically no religious teaching whatever. He there- 
fore went out into their country on a Sunday afternoon, and, taking 
his stand on the side of a hill, began preaching. His first con- 
gregation consisted of about two hundred men, but the fame of 
his eloquence spread and he soon preached to thousands. Great 
throngs of the poor miners and of the inhabitants of the neigh- 
boring city came out to hear him. Trees were crowded with lis- 
teners, the lanes were thronged with wagons and carriages of the 
more wealthy who shared in the general curiosity. He moved the 
great throng with wonderful power. Tears made white streaks 
down the coal-blackened faces of miners who had probably never 




John and Charles Wesley 
(from the memorial tab- 
let in Westminster Abbey) 



554 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

heard preaching before. Then Whitefield did the same thing in 
Moorfields and Kennington Common, on the outskirts of London. 

The Wesleys took somewhat reluctantly to field preaching and 
the practice soon became common among the Methodists. Thou- 
sands of converts were made. Whitefield was the greatest pop- 
ular preacher England ever had. John Wesley was of a somewhat 
more formal, calm, and self-possessed nature, but he also could 
hold the attention of crowds of ten and even twenty thousand 
people. The total amount of his preaching was almost incredible. 
He lived to be eighty-seven years old and retained his vigor to the 
last. He spent fifty years in itinerant preaching, and it is com- 
puted that he traveled a quarter of a million miles and preached 
more than forty thousand sermons. He always rose at four o'clock 
in the morning and frequently preached four or five times in 
one day. 

498. Separation of the Methodists from the Established Church. 
— Neither Wesley nor his companions wished to leave the estab- 
lished church of England. They considered themselves clergymen 
of that body and believed in and were strongly attached to its creed 
and form of worship. But there were many things which tended 
to bring about separation. The Methodists were organized among 
themselves, with their separate chapels and often their separate 
ministers. In 1744 the first Methodist conference was held at 
the Founder's Chapel in London. It was attended by John and 
Charles Wesley, four other ordained clergymen, and four lay 
preachers. They simply drew up an outline of their teachings 
and resolved that " societies are to be formed wherever the 
preachers go." But organization was not likely to stop there. 
John Wesley was a man of great organizing and administrative 
ability and he gradually introduced among the Methodist societies 
rules and arrangements which enabled them to carry on their 
church affairs quite separately from those of the parishes of which 
they were still nominally members. In 1760 many of the lay 
preachers declared themselves "dissenting ministers" and began 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 555 

to give the sacrament, like Presbyterians and Baptists. Thus the 
Methodists became a separate body from the established church 
and practically another denomination of Dissenters. They had 
their own buildings, preachers, congregations, and conferences. 
They numbered before Wesley's death almost a hundred thou- 
sand members and have later grown to many millions in England, 
Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and other countries. 

499. The Evangelical Clergy The Methodist movement not 

only resulted in the formation of another religious body but it 
also had a great effect on the established church. Many ministers 
and laymen were led by the religious revival and by the preaching 
of Whitefield and the Wesleys to adopt a more active and intense 
religious life than had been customary. Much the same appeal 
to the feelings which was customary among the Methodists was 
now frequently made by clergymen of the established church. 
In his later life Wesley was asked to preach from many pulpits 
from which half a century before he had been turned away. 

Some Anglican clergymen even became itinerant .preachers, 
speaking in other churches, in Methodist chapels, and in the 
open air. This is known as the " evangelical movement" in the 
English church, and had a marked influence far into the nine- 
teenth century. Even in the eighteenth century the Methodist 
and evangelical agitation had awakened the mass of the people, 
given them new interests, taught them the possibility of creating 
new organizations for themselves, and done much to break up 
the stolid and half-barbarous ignorance and brutality in which 
many of the lower classes lived. In the colonies, especially in 
America, the Methodists became the great pioneer religious body, 
carrying their teaching and organization close to the frontier as it 
advanced into the wilderness. 

500. William Pitt and the Young Patriot Party. — There were 
signs of a change in the political feeling of the country some- 
what similar to the religious changes that have just been de- 
scribed. The kind of government that was being carried on by 



556 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Walpole satisfied, it is true, a great part of the upper classes. 
It was moderate and reasonable ; but it was extremely corrupt, 
low-minded, and unpatriotic. It kept a safe majority in parlia- 
ment, but it made no appeal to the enthusiasm or support of the 
country at large. 

There were some members of parliament, however, even adher- 
ents of the dominant Whig party, who were deeply dissatis- 
fied with it. They hated the bribery which was so common and 
refused to vote always according to the wishes of the ministers. 
The most conspicuous of these members was William Pitt. He 
was a young man, a brilliant speaker, and an intense, enthusiastic 
lover of his country. He could see no other side to any ques- 
tion than the one which was to the interest of England. He 
had no sympathy with Walpole's moderation and coolness. H3 
believed in appealing to the whole people and in stirring their 
to more patriotic national feelings. It was many years befor- 
he occupied any office, but he was admired and beloved by the 
people outside of parliament, and kept up a constant and growing 
opposition to-W T alpole and to his form of government. 

501. War with Spain. — Notwithstanding the slight control 
which the people had over the government, from time to time 
some wave of popular feeling spread over the country, and, sup- 
ported by the patriot party in parliament, swept the government 
along with it. In 1738 such an outburst carried England into 
war with Spain. There were many commercial disputes with 
that country. English merchants were active, enterprising, and 
unscrupulous, and pushed their ventures into all parts of the 
world. The inhabitants of the widespread colonies of Spain 
wanted to buy the goods which English merchants wanted to 
sell them. The Spanish government, however, like all other 
European countries at that time, forbade foreign ships to trade 
with their colonies. The only exception to this was the Asiento 
Treaty, by which England might send one vessel of six hundred 
tons once a year into the harbor of Porto Bello. This concession 




English Possessions 
3 French Possessions 
Portuguese Possessions 
Native States — i 



THE MjK.. WORKS. 



u 




Scale of ] 

I I English Possessions 

1 I French Possessions 

Portuguese Possessions 
Native States — 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 557 

was made an opportunity for much unfairness by English mer- 
chants. When the ship which was permitted to enter the har- 
bor discharged her cargo, a number of other English vessels 
which had followed her and lay far enough off from the coast to 
be out of sight sailed in at night and loaded her again. This 
cargo was then discharged the next day, and the process repeated 
several times. The Spanish government knew of this but could 
not afford to patrol the coast and prevent it. There was also 
much smuggling by English merchants into the Spanish pos- 
sessions. These conditions brought about frequent disputes 
between the two countries and repeated conflicts between Eng- 
lish merchants and Spanish revenue officers. 

The actual occasion for the war, however, was the story of an 
English sea captain named Jenkins, who came to London, told 
how he had been maltreated by the Spaniards, and showed one 
of his ears which he claimed had been cut off by them seven 
years before, and which he had kept in a box. He declared 
when examined in the House of Commons that the Spanish 
officer had told him to take his ear and show it to his king. 
When he was asked what he did then he replied, " I recom- 
mended my soul to my God and my cause to my country." This 
expression was seized upon, became a popular cry, and the minis- 
try, urged by the warlike feeling in the country and the rising 
spirit in parliament, decided to go to war. When Walpole entered 
upon this war with Spain in 1739 ne did so against his better 
judgment and in the anticipation of defeat. His fears were justi- 
fied. There was no fighting on land, and at sea there were more 
failures than successes. It is true that an English fleet which 
was sent on a half-warlike, half-exploring voyage around the 
world plundered a Spanish port on the coast of Peru, captured a 
Spanish galleon on the way to Manila, seized some Spanish colo- 
nies and ships in the Indies, and returned to Portsmouth, like 
Drake, with holds full of gold and silver. But its return was only 
after four years, in which nothing had been heard of it, and in the 



558 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

meantime the war elsewhere had gone badly. A fleet captured 
Porto Bello on the isthmus of Panama, but was driven off from 
Carthagena and Santiago with heavy losses and some discredit. 

502. War of the Austrian Succession. — This would have been 
a quite unimportant war except for two things. In the first place, 
its ill success led to the resignation of Walpole in 1742, and 
secondly it dragged on until it became a part of the great War 
of the Austrian Succession which was carried on among the 
European countries from 1740 to 1748. 1 Even in this war the 
part which England took was comparatively small. George II 
was deeply interested in it on account of his possession of Han- 
over in Germany, and the feeling in the country was warlike, 
especially as the position of England was opposed to that of 
both Spain and France, her two ancient enemies. England 
was more wealthy than her allies. In addition therefore to the 
troops she sent, grants of money were made by parliament to 
various countries on the continent to enable them to put armies 
into the field. In 1743 a combined army of English, Hanove- 
rians, Hessians, Austrians, and Dutch was formed under the com- 
mand of King George II, and put in motion for an invasion of 
France. A victory of some importance over the French w T as 
gained by it at Dettingen. This was the last occasion when an 
English king actually took part in a battle. 

1 This was a war in which the principal contestants were Maria Theresa 
of Austria and Frederick the Great of Prussia, but which drew into it as 
allies on one side or the other most of the nations of Europe. Charles VI 
of Austria, having no sons, had drawn up a document known as the " Prag- 
matic Sanction," guaranteeing to his daughter Maria Theresa the inherit- 
ance of all his dominions. Most of the sovereigns of Europe agreed to 
this, but when Charles died Frederick of Prussia seized part of the inherit- 
ance of the young queen and others other parts. For the protection of 
her dominions Maria Theresa organized an extensive alliance of different 
countries, of which England was one. On the other hand, Frederick called 
in the aid of the French, so that the various countries were soon pitted 
against one another. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 559 

Two years later occurred the battle of Fontenoy in the Nether- 
lands, where the English and their allies were defeated. A column 
of English and Hanoverian troops had forced themselves through 
the French lines and were on the brink of obtaining a complete 
victory when the French general made a last and desperate effort 
to save the day. He ordered the household troops of the French 
king and an Irish brigade to attack the British column. The 
Irish brigade was composed of several regiments of Irishmen 
driven out of their own country by the persecutions of the penal 
code and now in the service of France. They were burning with 
desire to avenge themselves on their English persecutors and 
now attacked them in a charge that carried all before it, threw 
the British and their allies into confusion, and won a decisive 
victory for the French. 

Some fighting took place at sea, although there were no great 
engagements. England defeated two French fleets, conquered 
Cape Breton in America, and captured an immense number of 
French merchant vessels. Fighting between the English and 
French also took place in India. A general peace was made in 
1748 at Aix la Chapelle by which the countries involved agreed 
to restore everything^ as far as possible, to the condition it was in 
at the beginning of the conflict. The War of the Austrian Suc- 
cession was one of the most useless and at the same time one 
of the most destructive wars in history. 

503. The Colonization of Nova Scotia. — When the war was 
over great difficulty was found in England in disposing in a satis- 
factory way of the large numbers of soldiers and sailors who were 
discharged from the service. The suggestion was made that they 
be encouraged to go as settlers to the English colony of Nova 
Scotia, which was flanked by the French colony of Canada and, 
because of its small population, liable to be absorbed. This 
plan was taken up with great interest by Lord Halifax, president 
of the Board of Trade. Free passage, a piece of land, and support 
for a year were offered to each private, and larger grants were 



560 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

made to officers. Some four thousand men accepted the offer of 
the government, the expedition sailed in 1750 under military pro- 
tection, and Nova Scotia soon became a populous and nourishing 
colony. Its principal town was named Halifax, after the patron 
of the enterprise. This was the first colonizing expedition sent 
out under the direct auspices of the English government. 

504. Reform of the Calendar. — In 1752 the English calendar 
was corrected and made to conform to that in use in continental 
countries. The Julian calendar, established in the time of Julius 
Caesar and in use throughout the middle ages, was imperfect, and 
in the course of time had brought an error of several days into 
the common reckoning. This error was corrected by certain 
Italian astronomers and the correction promulgated by Pope 
Gregory XIII in 1582. Most countries accepted this reform, 
but England obstinately declined to do so because the recom- 
mendation came from the pope, and still used the dates which 
are now described as " Old Style." In the eighteenth century 
the error amounted to eleven days. Parliament now passed an 
act ordering that September 3 should be called September 14, 
and that the year should be calculated in the future according to 
the Gregorian calendar. The beginning of the year was also 
placed at January 1 instead of March 25, as was customary 
before. Many of the people did not understand the change and 
believed that in some way they were being defrauded of their 
time or pay. Mobs went about shouting " Give us back our 
eleven days." 

505. English and French in America. — The last war had showed 
that England's interests were now so widely spread over the 
world that any war into which she entered was likely to involve 
fighting in India and America as well as in Europe. Her colonies 
were also likely of themselves to lead her into conflicts. It was 
in this way that she was drawn into her next great war. In America 
French colonists occupied the valley of the St. Lawrence River 
and the district of Louisiana around the mouth of the Mississippi, 




Tropic of Cancer 



SV 



•er "^> .. * \ i 



ENGLAND 

FRANCE and SPAIN 

IN AMERICA 
1750 



{. 100 200 500 400 500 



L 



Scale of Miles 

TMEM-N. WORKS \(/Q 




gdQPEBP 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 561 

They claimed all the country lying between these distant settle- 
ments, which would have given them the whole western slope of 
the Allegheny Mountains, and had even established a few forts 
and trading posts there. 

The thirteen English colonies along the seacoast, on the 
other hand, had been developing their country, spreading inland 
and across the mountains, and were not at all inclined to accept 
the French claims. In 1749 the English government granted 
a charter to the " Ohio Company " which had as its objects trade 
with the Indians in this disputed region and the founding of settle- 
ments on the Ohio River. On the other hand, in 1 753, Duquesne, 
the governor of Canada, issued a proclamation declaring all terri- 
tory west of the mountains to be in the possession of France. At 
the same time he sent messages to the governors of Pennsylvania 
and New York announcing that France would permit no settle- 
ments on the Ohio River. A French fort was built where the 
Monongahela flows into the Ohio and named after the governor, 
Fort Duquesne. 

The English protested against this and fighting soon occurred. 
The home government gave orders to the governors of Pennsyl- 
vania and Virginia to resist the French if they entered the limits 
of their provinces. The colonies raised troops and an expedition 
was sent from Virginia to the Ohio country in 1754 under a young 
planter named George Washington. He was successful in one skir- 
mish with the French but was soon attacked by a much superior 
force and compelled to surrender. Then General Braddock was 
sent from England with about two thousand regular troops to help 
the colonial militia. He was too proud to take the advice of colo- 
nial officers and was defeated by a body of French and Indians 
near Fort Duquesne. He was killed with many of his officers, 
while his whole force was scattered. When the French brought 
new troops from home an English fleet intercepted and attacked 
some of the vessels carrying them. In India a conflict had broken 
out between the French and English East India Companies* 



562 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

506. The Seven Years' War With actual fighting in prog- 
ress between Frenchmen and Englishmen in India and America, 
war between the two nations could not long be avoided. It was 
the more likely to occur and would more probably be a serious 
contest because another European war was threatening to break 
out, in which England and France would as usual be drawn to 
opposite sides. In 1756 the Seven Years' War began. England 
immediately declared war on France. 

For a while everything went badly. Minorca, one of the two 
English possessions in the Mediterranean, was captured by the 
French fleet, the king's electorate of Hanover was overrun by a 
French army, an attempt by the English commander in America 
to capture the French fortress of Louisburg was a failure. Worse 
than these military disasters was the weakness and incompetency 
of the ministry. A succession of prime ministers had held office 
since the resignation of Walpole. Lord Carteret had been suc- 
ceeded by Henry Pelham, and he by his brother, the duke of 
Newcastle. Newcastle was fussy, easily frightened, and incapable 
of planning or carrying out a vigorous policy. Under his adminis- 
tration, without a good organization of either army, navy, or diplo- 
matic service, it seemed certain that England would suffer calamity 
after calamity in a war with France. 

507. The Ministry of Pitt. — Pitt was added to the ministry 
but at first given almost no power. After two years of alarm, 
mismanagement, and failure he was at last brought into his true 
position as the most influential minister in the cabinet, and to 
him fell the principal direction of the war. Pitt had been in par- 
liament for more than twenty years, and his splendid powers of 
oratory, his fiery nature, and his great popularity in the country 
at large had made him dreaded by opponents and valued by the 
most thoughtful of his colleagues. But the dislike of the king, 
the secure position of the great leaders of the Whig party, and 
his own stiffness and irritability had prevented him from holding 
any important office or exercising any great influence in the 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 563 



government. Now, however, events had at last brought him to 
the front, and for some years Pitt was almost the despotic ruler 
of England in all things connected with the war. 

He immediately infused some of his own energy, patriotism, 
devotion, and confidence into all branches of the government, 
army, and navy. He sent home again the Dutch and German 
troops which had been brought over by the king and Newcastle 
to defend England, leaving the English people to defend them- 
selves, as they had always been able to do before. He ordered 
regiments to be recruited in the Highlands, much to the alarm 
of those who remembered 1745 and be- 
lieved all Highlanders to be confirmed 
Jacobites. But Pitt argued that if the 
Scotchmen were given an opportunity 
for warlike glory and regular pay, they 
would faithfully support the govern- 
ment; and they did. He sent new 
troops to the continent to join the allies 
of England there, obtained from parlia- 
ment liberal subsidies to help Prussia 
keep her armies in the field, and dis- 
patched one naval expedition after 
another to the coast of France. The old 

capacity of the English for naval warfare asserted itself. Between 
1758 and 1762 about nine tenths of all the ships of war belong- 
ing to the French government were captured or destroyed, and 
the English naval vessels and privateers also seized most of the 
French West Indies and almost swept French commerce from the 
seas. But the greatest battles of this war were fought, where it 
had originated, in North America and in India. In both these 
countries English and French, pitted against one another in 
a long struggle, fought desperately, and in both the English 
emerged completely and permanently victorious over their an- 
cient rivals. 




William Pitt 



564 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

508. The French and Indian War in America. — In America the 
settlers in the English colonies were much more numerous than 
those in the French settlements ; but they were unwarlike, divided 
into separate provinces, and their military affairs much misman- 
aged by the home government. The French, with a small popu- 
lation in America, had been provided by their government with 
a relatively large and effective military equipment and had been 
placed under a succession of capable governors whose powers 
were almost absolute. The French were also more successful in 
obtaining the good will and the alliance of the Indians. In the 
early part of the war, therefore, under Montcalm, fighting had 
gone mostly in favor of the French, and it seemed not unlikely 
that they would make good their hold upon the vast western 
territories which they claimed. 

But all this was now changed. Pitt urged the English colonists 
to raise twenty thousand troops, promising to. provide them with 
arms, ammunition, and provisions, and to obtain a grant from 
parliament to repay the expense of their uniforms and wages. He 
sent more than twenty thousand regular troops from England and 
placed them under new commanders like Wolfe, Howe, and 
Amherst, chosen not for their position or influence but for their 
ability, enterprise, and ambition. 

The troops and supplies that were sent from France were cut 
off by the English fleets, and the French had thereafter to keep 
up the contest with no resources except such troops and equip- 
ment as they already had in Canada. The English suffered 
several defeats but gained many more victories. In 1758 Louis- 
burg and all Cape Breton were taken. Fort Duquesne was cap- 
tured and destroyed and the settlement renamed Pittsburg, after 
the great minister. In 1759 Ticonderoga, after a failure during 
the previous year, was taken, as were also several other forts. The 
crowning achievement was the capture of the city of Quebec in 
a bloody struggle in which Wolfe and Montcalm were both killed. 
In 1760 Montreal was captured and Canada was thus lost to 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 565 

France. It was never regained and passed permanently into 
the possession of England. Shortly afterwards France ceded the 
country around the mouth of the Mississippi to Spain and thus 
lost her foothold in America. 

509. India In India the contest was fought out with less help 

from the mother country. In fact the fighting between English 
and French in India had long been a rivalry between traders and 
adventurers from those two countries rather than between the gov- 
ernments. The wars at home merely gave an excuse for the rival- 
ries of the two companies in India to be settled with the sword. 
Unlike America, where the natives were few, poor, and barbarous, 
in India there were many millions of inhabitants who had been 
thickly settled in the land for ages and had an old civilization and 
much wealth. They had therefore many political and religious 
complications among themselves quite apart from those of the 
European traders and settlers who came to live among them. 

At about the time that Elizabeth was reigning in England a 
Mogul or Tartar emperor named Akbar was making a long series 
of conquests of various native kingdoms and principalities, which 
resulted in uniting the greater part of India under his control. 
He and his armies were Mohammedans but they allowed freedom 
of worship to the vast Hindoo and Parsee population which they 
conquered. The capital of Akbar was finally established at Delhi 
in the north of India. He divided his empire into provinces, over 
each of which was a viceroy, and instituted great improvements, 
in government, the action of the law courts, the keeping of order, 
the survey of land, and the regulation of taxation. 

The power of the viceroys in such a large country was very 
great, and frequently they and even their subordinate governors 
acted almost independently. The conquests of the ruler of Delhi 
and those of his successors were never complete in the Deccan, 1 

1 The Deccan is the southern portion of the peninsula of India. The 
name is applied to a district about nine hundred miles long and three or four 
hundred miles wide. 



566 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

where several older Mohammedan and one native Hindoo kingdom 
remained either entirely or practically independent. Somewhat 
later also a number of the native Hindoo races in the western 
mountainous provinces became independent and formed what was 
called the " Mahratta Confederacy" under independent rajahs. 1 

510. European Settlements in India. — In this tangle of native 
races and governments Portuguese, Dutch, French, and English 
traders had come and made settlements for trading purposes, 
relying on permission received and protection given by the Great 
Mogul or by one or other of the local rulers. By the beginning 
of the eighteenth century the Portuguese and Dutch settlements 
on the mainland of India had become comparatively unimportant. 
The French, however, were installed in two or three important 
centers, and the English had three well-established posts, Bombay 
on the west coast, Madras on the southeast coast, and Calcutta on 
the northeast, at the head of the Bay of Bengal, near the mouth 
of the Ganges River. About twelve hundred miles of coast inter- 
vened between Bombay and Madras, and about eight hundred 
between Madras and Calcutta. Thus they were separated from 
one another by long distances. By sea it required many days' 
sailing to pass from one to another, and by land the difficult 
country, mountain chains, and hostile native population made 
communication almost impossible. 

The English settlements, which altogether included only a few 
hundred or at most a few thousand men, were not under the 
English government nor did they govern themselves. They were 

1 The confusion of governments led to much confusion in the titles of 
the greater and lesser rulers of India. The native Hindoo name for a ruler 
is rajah, which has the same root as the Latin word rex. Maha rajah 
means a great prince. Nawabs, or nabobs, were the viceroys of the Mogul 
Empire. The Peishxva was the military head under the Mahratta rajah. 
Nizam was the special name given to the Mogul viceroy of the Deccan. 
The emperor at Delhi was commonly called the " Great Mogul." There 
were many other names of special honor or family tradition used by the 
various native princes. 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 567 

established and ruled and their officials paid by the British East 
India Company, an organization of English merchants with head- 
quarters in London and possessing by grant from the English 
government a monopoly of the trade between England and India. 
Each of the three settlements was governed by a president and 
council appointed by the company. 

For many years these trading settlements, 1 detached from one 
another and from those of other European nations, were occupied 
merely with matters of trade or with efforts to preserve their own 
security in the midst of the native inhabitants. But some time 
before the middle of the eighteenth century one of them at least, 
Madras, came into conflict with the nearest French settlement, 
Pondicherry, situated on the coast some eighty miles to the 
southward. 

511. Dupleix. — The governor of this trading post of the 
French East India Company was a man of genius and activity 
named Dupleix. He was not satisfied merely to protect the 
small colony of French agents and traders under his charge, but 
was ambitious to extend his power and that of the French govern- 
ment among the natives. Dupleix perceived that in the general 
disorganization of government among the native races of India 
the Europeans would sooner or later obtain political as well as 
trading powers. When this should happen the French and the 
English would confront one another as rivals for control in India, 
and he determined to be the first in the field. With great skill 
and labor Dupleix carried out two lines of policy. One of these 
was to weave a network of treaties and alliances with the native 
princes and persons of influence in the Carnatic ; 2 the other was 

1 They were often called "factories," because a factor or agent of the 
company was in charge of each of them. This word must not of course 
be confused with factory in the sense of a manufacturing establishment. 

2 This was the name given to the district along the east coast of the 
Deccan, where the English and French settlements of Madras and Pondi- 
cherry were established. 



568 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

to take native troops into the service of the French company and 
drill and organize them on the European model. 1 Dupleix thus 
made himself well known and influential among the natives and 
had a military force to be used when occasion should arise. This 
opportunity came for the first time with the outbreak in 1740 of 
the War of the Austrian Succession, in which England and France 
were on opposite sides. Madras was immediately attacked and 
captured by a French fleet, and Dupleix with the aid of one of 
the native princes, the nabob of Arcot, attacked the neighboring 
English fort of St. George on the coast. Fighting went almost 
invariably in favor of the French and their allies until the peace 
of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed. One of its clauses required each 
country to give back its conquests, so Madras was restored to the 
English. 

But nominal peace between France and England was no bar- 
rier to the schemes of Dupleix ; there were still the contests 
among the native rulers. His policy and success during the 
recent contests had given him the greatest possible prestige and 
prominence. From Pondicherry he exercised an enormous influ- 
ence, throwing the weight of his personal alliances and the fight- 
ing power of his sepoys now on the side of one native ruler, now 
on that of another. He was in fact for a while one of the most 
powerful of Indian rulers, exercising control, directly or through 
the native princes whom he had placed on their thrones, over 
several millions of men. Thus the English were hemmed in by 
French influence and power on the coast of India much as they 
were in America, and it seemed only a matter of time till they 
should be expelled altogether. 

512. Clive. — The British East India Company had never at- 
tempted to form any strong body of soldiery in India. In imi- 
tation of the French they engaged a small number of sepoys, but 
for such military duties as were required they usually relied upon 

1 Such native soldiers with European drill and equipment were known 
as " sepoys." 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 569 

their employees, who were for the most part without any special 
military training. Among these was a young clerk named Robert 
Clive, who proved, when necessity and opportunity arose, to have 
a natural gift for military service. In the rivalry with the French 
he gradually developed a military skill, boldness, and genius 
which made him one of the world's greatest commanders. 

Like the French, the English now obtained alliances with some 
of the native princes, took sides with those who were opposed to 
the French, and aided them in their contests. 

A number of battles were fought in which victory usually fell to 
the English, and within two or three years the French and their 
native allies had been repeatedly conquered and English influence 
in turn became supreme. In 1753 Clive had to return to Eng- 
land on account of ill health, Dupleix was recalled to France in 
disgrace on account of his failures, and a treaty was made between 
the French and English East India companies by which they 
agreed to leave conditions in the south of India in their existing 
state. The natives of the Carnatic had become habituated to the 
influence of Europeans, but the question as to whose this pre- 
dominant influence should be, that of England or that of France, 
remained undetermined. 

513. Calcutta. — In 1756 a terrible tragedy in the far north 
brought the English into conflict with the natives of that region 
and soon pitted them against the French there. Some disputes 
having broken out between the English at their little trading 
post of Calcutta and Surajah Dowlah, the cruel and dissipated 
nabob of Bengal, within whose dominions Calcutta lay, the latter 
suddenly advanced upon that settlement and seized it. He gave 
orders that the merchants who had been captured there should 
be thrown into the cell in the English fort, which became sadly 
famous as the " Black Hole of Calcutta." It was a room less than 
twenty feet square, with but a few windows near the low ceiling. 

The prisoners were a hundred and forty-six in number, the 
weather was extremely hot, and they had nothing to quench their 



570 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

thirst. During a night of horrors, in which many became raving 
mad, they struggled and trampled upon one another in frenzied 
efforts to get near the windows, till one hundred and twenty- three 
of them had died from suffocation or from being trodden down 
by their companions. In the morning the twenty-three survivors 
were sent by the nabob as prisoners to his capital at Moorsheda- 
bad. All the English were expelled from Bengal and their fac- 
tory seized. 

The news of this catastrophe soon reached Madras, where Clive 
had just arrived with restored health and a military appointment 
as commander of one of the English forts. The authorities at 
Madras determined to take revenge on the nabob of Bengal for 
his cruelty and to restore the English settlement at Calcutta. 
Clive was appointed to command the expedition, and within a 
few months Calcutta had been recaptured and the nabob forced 
to enter into a new alliance with the English. But here also was 
a French settlement not far away, that of Chandernagore, and the 
nabob, in his anger with the English, turned to the French, 
offering them his special favor and protection. When the Seven 
Years' War broke out in 1756 the peace between England and 
France in India, but poorly kept at best, was broken. Clive 
secured as reinforcements a regiment of royal troops and attacked 
and destroyed Chandernagore. 

514. Plassey and Wandewash. — This brought Clive and the 
English again into a contest with Surajah Dowlah. In the won- 
derful battle of Plassey in 1757 Clive, with a little army consisting 
of nine hundred English soldiers and about twenty-one hundred 
sepoys, defeated the nabob's army of more than thirty thousand 
men. The superiority of European discipline, equipment, and 
leadership over vastly greater numbers of native troops was con- 
clusively shown. 

Clive had plotted with one of the nabob's generals before the 
battle, promising to reward his treachery with the throne of Ben- 
gal, This was carried out ; the old nabob was deposed and soon 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 571 

afterwards put to death, and the newly enthroned prince in grati- 
tude gave to the English a great sum of money and extensive 
power over all that part of Bengal surrounding Calcutta. Although 
peace was established with this prince, Clive pressed on far inland 
and near Patna defeated Shah Allum, the Great Mogul himself. 
Clive was appointed by the company governor general of the 
British possessions in Bengal, where he exercised almost sovereign 
powers. 

While these things were taking place in Bengal the old struggle 
between the French and English in the south of India was renewed 
and fought to a conclusion. When the war in Europe broke out 
a new French commander in chief named Lally was sent to India 
to follow in the footsteps of Dupleix. The natives had small part 
in the hard struggles which followed between French and Eng- 
lish. After many contests a decisive battle was fought in 1760 
at Wandewash, in which Colonel Coote, an officer brought up, 
like Clive, in the Indian service, completely defeated Lally and 
the French. Fortress after fortress belonging to the French was 
reduced, and finally Pondicherry itself was captured and destroyed. 
The two great battles, Plassey in the north in 1757 and Wande- 
wash in the south in 1760, with the events which preceded and 
followed them, placed the future of India in the hands of the 
English. Although the French settlements were restored to them 
at the peace and rebuilt they were no longer military establish- 
ments, and although in later wars the French in India showed 
hostility to England they never again became serious rivals. In 
India, as in America, France was either deprived of all her power 
or reduced to relative unimportance. Her greatness lay at home, 
while England's had become world-wide. 

515. The Peace of Paris. — These changes were all embodied 
in the Peace of Paris, which in 1763 finally brought the Seven 
Years' War to a close. Shortly before the peace Spain had been 
drawn into the war as an ally of France, and the English fleets 
had captured many of her island possessions, including Havana 



572 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



in Cuba and Manila in the Philippine Islands. By the peace 
England gained from France Canada and all her American 
possessions westward to the Mississippi, four of the islands of the 
West Indies, some former French possessions in Africa, and a 
promise not to fortify the French settlements in India. From 
Spain England obtained Florida, giving back to her in return all 
recent conquests. By this treaty England reached the greatest 
extent of military glory, power, and territory which she was 
destined to attain within the eighteenth century. 

An expedition sent out some years afterwards indicated some 
of the other directions in which her colonies and settlements 

were later to extend. This expe- 
dition was sent in 1768 by the Royal 
Society to the island of Tahiti to 
make observations of the transit of 
Venus. In command of the vessels 
as navigator was Captain Cook. He 
made many surveys of the smaller 
islands of the Pacific, then circum- 
navigated the great island of New 
Zealand, and sailed along the eastern 
coast of Australia, naming Botany 
Bay and claiming possession for Eng- 
land of the region which afterwards became the rich and popu- 
lous colony of New South Wales. 

516. Summary of the Period. — During the seventy-five years 
lying between the Revolution of 1688 and the Peace of Paris of 
1763 the new line of kings, the Orange-Stuarts, and their succes- 
sors, the House of Hanover, kept the throne, notwithstanding 
the struggle of 1690 and the two Jacobite risings of 17 15 and 
1745. All desire on the part of the English people to return 
to the old line gradually passed away. This was partly at least 
a result of the unimportance into which the office of king was 
gradually falling. The power of parliament was really supreme. 




W 

Medal given to Captain Cook 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 573 

England was practically an aristocracy, governed by the leaders 
of the classes which were represented in parliament. The growth 
of the power of parliament, of the cabinet which drew its power 
from parliament, and of the prime minister who could speak in 
the name of the majority in parliament, had reduced the royal 
power to little more than a right to accept the advice which 
the ministry gave. " Ministers are the king in this country," 
George II once said, and his complaint was scarcely an exag- 
geration of the fact. 

Commerce and the wealth drawn from commerce were becom- 
ing constantly more important and more influential. Although 
England was still fundamentally an agricultural country and the 
landed aristocracy were the most influential class in the nation, yet 
the interests of commerce and the prominence of money ques- 
tions were far greater than they had been in any previous period. 
The Bank of England was founded in 1694, the money to carry 
on the wars was mostly borrowed, and the national debt was 
made larger and larger. 

Above all, the interests of England had spread from one half 
of the little island of Britain to a world-wide empire. The par- 
liaments of England and Scotland were united in 1707 and 
Ireland was more than ever subordinated to the prejudices and 
interests of England. By interests and ambitions outside of her 
own island limits England was led to take part in the three great 
wars of the eighteenth century which were closed by the treaties 
of Utrecht in 17 13, of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and of Paris in 
1763. In the last of these she secured control of the vast domin- 
ions of North America and India, and she laid down through 
her explorers the general courses in which her later civilization 
was to flow. In politics, in literature, in science, and in reli- 
gion the first half of the eighteenth century was, at its best, a 
period of reasonableness, moderation, and polish ; at its worst, a 
period of corruption, formality, and unbelief in any except mate- 
rial objects. Before this period was over, however, Methodism 



574 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and the evangelical movement aroused the nation not only to 
religious interests but also to a more active intellectual life. In 
politics William Pitt had awakened a new fire of patriotism, and 
parliament, if not less corrupt, became at least responsive to 
higher and nobler impulses. 



General Reading. — Macaulay, History of England, Vols. III-V, covers 
the earlier part of this period. Green, Short History, chap, he, sects. 8-10, 
chap, x, sect. 1. Morris, The Age of Queen Anne and The Early Han- 
overians (Epochs of Modern History), cover most of the period. Macaulay, 
Clive and Chatham. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, is a large 
work in eight volumes but much of it is devoted to Ireland and America. 
Only Vols. I— III are devoted entirely to English affairs. The spread of 
colonies is finely described in Seeley, The Expansion of Engla?id. The 
personal history of the kings of the period is well described in Thackeray, 
The Four Georges. The foundation of the English dominion in India is 
described in Innes, Short History of the British in India. Traill, Wil- 
liam III, Morley, Walpole and Chatham (Twelve English Statesmen), 
and Malleson, Lord Clive and Dupleix (Rulers of India), are valuable 
biographies. Holderness, Peoples and Problems of India, is a good small 
book. 

Contemporary Sources. — The Act of Settlement is printed in Adams 
and Stephens, Select Documents, No. 243. A number of short selections 
from contemporary writers, admirably chosen and including a number 
from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are published in a small 
volume, called English Prose, in the Camelot series. Several varied 
and interesting illustrative extracts are given in Kendall, Source-Book, 
Nos. 110-118; in Colby, Selections from the Sources, Nos. 83-96; and in 
Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 335-364. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Thackeray, Henry Esmond, belongs to the 
period of Queen Anne, and The Virginians to a time somewhat later. 
Scott, Black Dwarf, Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, and Waverley, 
all fall within this part of the eighteenth century. Mrs. Charles, Diary 
of Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan, is a story of the Methodists. Campbell, 
Lochiel, is a 'poem referring to the battle of Culloden. The well-known 
little poem of Southey refers to the battle of Blenheim. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Massacre of Glencoe, Kendall, Source-Book, 
No. 102 ; (2) the Battle of Plassey, ibid., No. 117 ; (3) the Battle of Quebec, 
ibid., No. 118; (4) the Jacobite Rebellions, Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 195-200; 



FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE 575 

(5) Jacobite Songs, Scottish National Songs ; (6) the Duke of Marlborough, 
Green, Short History, chap, ix, sect. 9; (7) Walpole, ibid., sect. 10; 
(8) Wesley and Whitefield, ibid., chap, x, sect. 1 ; (9) Voyages of Exploration 
and Piracy in the Eighteenth Century, Traill, Social England, Vol. V, 
pp. 24-34; (10) Literature in the Age of Walpole, ibid., pp. 72-88; (11) 
Agriculture in the Early Eighteenth Century, ibid., pp. 99-109; (12) The 
Cabinet System, Montague, English Constitutional History, pp. 163-173 ; 
(13) the Ascendency of France under Louis XIV, Robinson, Western 
Europe, pp. 495-508. 



JK 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, THE AMERICAN REVOLU- 
TION, AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1763-1815 

517. George III. — In 1760 George II had died and his grand- 
son George III, a young man of twenty-two, had come to the 
throne. He had been born in England and was the first king of 
his family who was not more of a German than an Englishman. 
He was the only one of the four Georges who had qualities which 
were likely to endear him to his people. He was a man of good 
moral character, plain in his habits, faithful to his duties, sincerely 
religious, dignified, and kind. Along with these attractive traits 
of character he had some others which were not so well suited to a 
king of England. He was naturally narrow-minded, prejudiced, 
and unspeakably obstinate. His early life had been unwisely 
arranged. After the death of his father, Frederick, prince of 
Wales, his mother had brought him up in almost entire seclusion. 
His education had been neglected, and he had had no opportu- 
nity to substitute for it the broadening influence which comes 
from contact with many men. 

Along with his mother's teachings of piety, courage, courtesy, 
and respect for women, which he never afterwards lost, some of 
her other precepts had also taken only too deep root in his mind. 
" George, be a king," she enjoined frequently upon him. Her ideas 
of the proper authority of a king were drawn from the example of 
certain rulers on the continent of Europe at this time, and these 
ideas she had impressed strongly upon her son. Some of his 
tutors imparted to him the same teachings. He gained there- 
fore at an early period a view of the powers and duties of his 

576 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS $77 



position which, backed by his ignorance and his obstinacy, could 
not fail to be harmful. If he had been willing to drop into the 
background, as the last three sovereigns had done, and allow the 
ministers and parliament to govern the country, it would have 
made little difference what his views on current matters were ; 
but George was determined to choose his ministers himself and 
to exercise personal influence over their policy. He did not 
plan to rule without parliament, as Charles I had thought possible, 
but he did expect to control 
the ministers and through them 
to exercise an influence upon 
parliament. 

518. The New Ministry. — 
Very soon, therefore, the king 
seized an opportunity to get his 
old tutor and guardian, Lord 
Bute, into the cabinet. One 
by one the old ministers found 
their position unsatisfactory and 
resigned. In 1761 Pitt himself 
had failed to convince the cab- 
inet of the desirability of con- 
tinuing the war and resigned. 

In each case of resignation a new minister was selected who was 
more satisfactory to the king and to Lord Bute. These, being 
generally opponents of the late ministers, were Tories, and when 
in a short time Lord Bute became prime minister, a Tory ministry 
was in power for the first time for almost forty years. After a 
number of changes, including a temporary return of Pitt, who 
was at the same time made earl of Chatham, in 1770 Lord North 
became prime minister, representing not so much any party as he 
did the personal wishes and policy of the king himself. Although 
Lord North was an able man, he was of a good-natured, some- 
what yielding disposition and made an ideal prime minister for 




578 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the king's wishes. He was always willing to carry out his plans 
if it were in any way possible. 

For the next twelve years he remained in office, and during 
that time the king's influence over the ministry was greater than it 
had been since the seventeenth century. In parliament a major- 
ity, known commonly as the "king's friends," was obtained and 
kept pretty steadily in existence. It was held together for the 
most part by the same old methods of bribery and favoritism that 
had been so influential for a long period preceding. 

The power of the king in the government and his increasing 
influence over the destinies of the nation were all the more 
anomalous because many changes were now in progress which 
seemed likely to break up the old organization of society and to 
bring new classes of men into power. 

519. The Industrial Revolution. — Agriculture had always been 
the principal industry of England, and the landholding class had 
always exercised the strongest influence over the government. 
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries commerce was, 
however, becoming a serious rival, and even manufacturing was 
spread widely through certain parts of the country. All these 
occupations alike — farming, trading, and manufacturing — were 
carried on by the same methods as had been in use for centu- 
ries. During the last half of the eighteenth century, however, a 
rapid and extensive series of changes began. These were by far 
the most important in the field of manufacturing. There were so 
many new inventions and these exercised such a deep influence 
on later times that the whole series of changes is often described 
as the " Industrial Revolution." By this is meant that the changes 
were as complete in the field of manufactures and in the manner 
of life of the mass of the people as were those caused in political 
life by the Revolution of 1688. 

520. The Spinning Jenny and the Water Frame. —One of the 
first inventions in this series was the spinning jenny, a machine 
invented in 1764, which could be turned by hand, but which would 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 579 

spin a number of threads at the same time, instead of only one, as 
had been done by the old spinning wheels which had been used 
until this time. Very soon a man named Arkwright invented 
an improved machine which could spin much more rapidly and 
evenly than the jenny but which had to be driven by some arti- 
ficial power. Water wheels were customarily used for this machine 
and it therefore became known as the " water frame." The first 
patent for the waler frame was taken out in 1769. The course 
of improvement and invention once begun, others were rapidly 
made, until spinning by machinery came to be done in enormous 
quantities and at extremely cheap rates. Some time afterwards 
a power loom was invented to take the place of the old hand 
looms ; and in the other processes connected with the manufac- 
ture of cotton, woolen, linen, and other woven goods there was 
the same wonderful improvement. Later this was extended to 
other kinds of manufactured goods and the process of introducing 
new machinery has gone on almost ever since. 

521. Water Power and Steam Power. — The application of power 
to machinery was almost as important as the newly invented 
machinery itself. At first water power alone was used, and the 
machines were put up in buildings along rapidly flowing streams 
where dams could be built and water wheels run. 

It had long been known, however, that steam could produce 
motion, and steam power had even been used in a rough way to 
work pumps in mines. But James Watt now set to work to over- 
come the difficulties heretofore in the way of making steam 
engines really useful, and in 1769 applied for his first patent for 
improvements. Little by little he brought his work nearer to 
perfection until in 1781 with a partner he began building engines 
which produced power for general manufacturing purposes. They 
soon came to be used even more than water power for running 
cotton and other factories. 

522. The Factory System. — The newly invented machinery 
was large and heavy, and the advantage of running a great deal 



580 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of it together was so great that large buildings or factories were 
put up especially for the purpose, either along the streams that 
furnished the power or, after the invention of the steam engine, 
wherever it was convenient. Great numbers of men, women, 
and children were engaged in these large factories, and the old 
manufacturing in private houses or small shops which had been 
customary for centuries came almost entirely to an end. Many 
of those who were engaged in spinning, weaving, and other indus- 
tries carried on by the old methods, and who could not readily 
change to the new, suffered intensely from loss of work and 
decreased prices for their goods. To these the factory system 
was the cause of great misery. The large factories were very 
different from anything before known in England. They gave 
employment to vast numbers of persons and produced great 
quantities of goods which were sold at home and abroad and 
brought vast wealth to England. The factory laborers formed a 
large body of the population with interests and characteristics very 
different from those of the farm laborers and the lower classes 
of the old towns. The men who carried on the factories, invested 
capital in them, and became wealthy from their produce made 
another group of the upper classes in England equally different 
from the landowners of the country and the merchants of the 
cities. 

The custom of manufacturing goods in large establishments 
with improved machinery, artificial power, and large bodies of 
laborers under the direction of employers or managers has come 
therefore to be spoken of as an entirely new social organization, 
and is often called the " factory system of industry." 

523. The Manufacturing Districts. — The part of England 
where these changes were principally taking place was in the 
northwestern and northern counties. There were three reasons 
for this. In the first place this was one of the regions in which 
the old-fashioned spinning and weaving of goods in the house- 
holds of the weavers had been most widespread, and there was 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 581 

therefore a foundation for the later manufacturing. Then the 
configuration of the country in that part of England gives to the 
streams a comparatively short and rapid course from their source 
to the sea. This made them capable of furnishing excellent 
water power for the early factories. Finally, most of the coal 
fields lie in that part of the country, so that even when steam 
power had been introduced and there was need of coal to pro- 
duce it there was no necessity for a change of location of the 
manufacturing establishments. Many of the small towns of that 
region grew large and populous, and others which had been mere 
villages grew to be busy manufacturing towns. In many places 
hundreds of tall smoking chimneys can be seen from one spot, 
and a close and active population has spread over a region which 
during the middle ages and earlier modern times was the most 
thinly settled and the most backward part of England. London 
also became a great manufacturing city, and thus one more cause 
was given for its vast and ever-increasing population. 

524. Roads and Canals. — The improvements in methods of 
production made during the latter part of the eighteenth century 
were more conspicuous and important in manufacturing than they 
were in any other direction, but much the same kind of changes 
took place in a lesser degree in other lines. One of these was 
in communication and transportation. The roads of the country 
were extremely bad, many of them having scarcely been properly 
repaired since Roman times. They were generally under the 
charge of the authorities of each locality, who had not the means 
or perhaps the inclination to improve them or even to keep them 
in repair. Coaches therefore were continually sinking into 
sloughs, and goods and persons were much more commonly 
carried on horseback than by wheeled vehicles. From 1800 
onward two engineers, Telford and Macadam, turned their atten- 
tion to the construction of good roads, invented new methods of 
building them, and induced the authorities in a number of places 
to go to the expense necessary to carry out their plans. A number 



582 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of turnpike companies were also formed which secured the right 
of way, made good roads, and then reimbursed themselves by 
charging toll for their use. 

In 1 76 1 the first extensive canal was opened; and before the 
end of the century a number of canals were completed, extending 
across England in several places, making a series of easy and 
cheap ways for the transportation of goods, and connecting many 
inland districts. 

525. Coal and Iron. — Coal and iron were also mined in much 
larger quantities and by improved methods. Coal was first used 
to smelt iron in 1760. Enough of these substances for fuel for 
the new manufacturing and material for the new machinery was 
readily produced in the northern and western districts of England, 
and vast quantities were mined for purposes of export. Many of 
these processes only reached their greatest advancement during 
the next century, but they were all well established during the 
period under discussion. Thus a number of the most valuable of 
those physical properties and characteristics of England, which 
were mentioned in the first chapter of this book, — her streams 
and inland water ways, her iron, and above all her coal, — after 
lying almost unused for most of her history, only became of real 
value to her at this late date in her career. 

526. Inclosures. — Improvements similar to those in manufac- 
tures, mining, and transportation were made in crops, in cattle, 
and in methods of cultivation during the middle and later year's 
of the eighteenth century. English agriculture, like her manufac- 
tures and commerce, became the best in the world. 

Along with these improvements the process of inclosing the 
open fields, which had been so conspicuous in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, was begun again. There was not the same violence nor dis- 
regard of customary rights as at that time. An act of parliament 
was obtained to authorize each process of combining and redivid- 
ing the old open agricultural lands, and the legal claims of tenants 
and small holders were carefully protected. Nevertheless there 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 583 

was much suffering during the change. Many who had been 
small farmers could not keep up with the new methods, and either 
became laborers on the farms of larger farmers or left the coun- 
try and went into the factory towns. In this way a large class of 
small farmers disappeared and another break was made with the 
conditions of earlier England. Many a laborer also who had form- 
erly made use of the common as pasture land for his cow, goat, 
donkey, or geese now found it inclosed and his old privilege lost. 

527. John Wilkes. — These changes among the people, how- 
ever, had no corresponding effect on the government of England. 
Parliament was still made up of the same classes that had long 
had control of it, and often acted with the king in entire opposi- 
tion to the feelings and wishes of the majority of the people of 
the country. An instance of this was the affair of John Wilkes. 
Wilkes was a man of low moral and political principles, who went 
into public life to gratify his ambitions and further his fortunes. 
He had good gifts as a writer, speaker, and social companion, 
was elected to parliament, and for notoriety's sake threw himself 
into opposition to the king, the ministry, and the majority with 
reckless boldness. He thus won the reputation of being an 
intrepid friend of the people. In a paper which he edited, 
called the North Briton, he made severe attacks upon the min- 
istry, upon many special friends of the king, and upon others 
high in office or in influence. No. 45 of his journal was par- 
ticularly outspoken and abusive. When it appeared, at the king's 
urgent request he was prosecuted for libel and sedition, though 
it would evidently require much stretching of the laws to prove 
him guilty of such a crime. 

His arrest was declared illegal by one of the judges on ac- 
count of his membership in parliament and for other reasons. 
The House of Commons then expelled him and ordered the 
obnoxious newspaper to be burned by the hangman. No longer 
protected by the privileges of parliament, he was then convicted 
of libel. In the meantime he had fought two duels, in one of 



5 8 4 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



which he had been almost killed, and had gone to France to 
recuperate in health and reputation. Not appearing before par- 
liament to resist his expulsion or before the court to receive sen- 
tence, he was outlawed. His opponents, the king, the ministers, 
and the majority of parliament, had triumphed and apparently 
crushed him. 

His reckless, profligate life, profane speech, and scandalous 
writings were such as would seem likely to deprive him of general 
sympathy. Nevertheless, strange to say, Wilkes was one of the 
most popular men in England. Many 
towns passed resolutions in his honor and 
the government of the city of London 
ordered his portrait painted and hung in 
the guildhall with an inscription, "In 
Honor of the Jealous Assertor of English 
Liberty by Law." When he returned to 
England his outlawry was removed, but 
he was sentenced to a long term of im- 
prisonment for the libel. Notwithstand- 
ing this the county of Middlesex elected 

him for a second time its representative 
Cup commemorating. ,. .. ., , 

. , ...... , _ _ .° in parliament. Again on the urgency of 

John Wilkes and No. 45 r ° ° J 

of the North Briton tne king the House of Commons expelled 

him ; but still again he was elected by a 
practically unanimous vote. Parliament refused to admit him and 
declared him incapable of ever sitting in that body. Neverthe- 
less his constituency again elected him, and this undignified con- 
test between parliament and the voters was repeated yet again. 
He was now at the height of his popularity, and " Wilkes and 
Liberty" and "Wilkes and Forty-five" were common cries over 
all England. The mystic number "45" was inscribed on the 
houses and shops of men who wished popularity, and was worn 
by many as a badge. When he was released from imprisonment 
he was elected lord mayor of London, and gifts, legacies,, popular 




'^miimiimM^ 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 585 

applause, and testimonials of approval and gratitude poured in 
upon him from all sides. 

528. The Junius Letters. — Among the pamphleteers and writers 
of letters in the newspapers during this excitement there was one 
who attracted special attention. He signed himself "Junius," 
but it was then and has always since remained quite uncertain who 
he really was. The letters appeared in a newspaper called the 
Public Advertiser, and were published from time to time between 
1768 and 1772. They were written in a good style, vigorous and 
clear; they attacked the king and the king's friends with bitter 
invective; and above all they were written by some one behind 
the scenes, who knew all the private scandals of the time and did 
not hesitate to use them for political effect. They were repub- 
lished in all the newspapers and magazines, were read and quoted 
everywhere, and goaded the king and ministers to fury. As the 
letters were anonymous this anger could only be satisfied by prose- 
cuting for libel the editors of the newspaper publishing them. 
The jury, however, declared that, although the editor was guilty 
of publishing the letters, he was not guilty of libel. 

The willingness to make a popular hero of such a man as 
Wilkes and to support him against king, ministers, and the major- 
ity in parliament, and the unwillingness of a jury to punish the 
publishers of the Junius letters, show that the system of government 
of the time, a corrupt parliament elected by a small part of the 
nation and influenced by an intriguing and obstinate king, was 
in as complete opposition to the will of the people of England as 
any despotism could be. 

529. Grievances in America. — This system of government 
awakened the same kind of opposition in a portion of the British 
dominions where conditions were more favorable to the success 
of the opposition than in England itself. This was in the Amer- 
ican colonies. There had frequently been conflicts of interest 
between the colonies and the home government, but these dis- 
putes had never yet become embittered. The policy of England, 



586 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

like that of other European countries in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, was to use her colonies for her own interests. 
When the colonists began to manufacture woolen goods, hats, 
wrought iron, and steel, laws were passed forbidding them to 
export these products or to send them from one place to another 
within the colonies. Manufacturing consequently died out, as it 
was intended that it should, the colonists remained agriculturists, 
and bought their manufactured goods from the mother country. 

The Navigation Acts x were intended to increase the prosperity 
of English merchants and shipbuilders and provide the govern- 
ment with plenty of ships and sailors in case of war. But these 
acts were adverse to the interests of the colonists. They pro- 
hibited them from exporting sugar, tobacco, and several other 
articles produced in the colonies to any country except England 
and her possessions ; forbade the importation of any European 
goods except such as should be brought directly from England 
or should have paid specially heavy duties and been specially 
authorized ; and allowed no trading with colonial ports to any 
except British vessels. The Navigation Acts were not as burden- 
some to the colonists as might be supposed because they had 
not been strictly enforced. Smuggling was a regular occupation 
even of respectable business houses at Salem, Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, and other colonial ports ; and as a matter of fact 
the colonists kept up a profitable though an illegal trade with the 
French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies. This violation of the 
laws may fairly have been looked upon as more of a grievance 
to the home government than the laws themselves were to the 
colonists. 

530. The Stamp Act. — After the close of the French war in 
1763 many of these conditions were altered. The old days of 
letting the colonies drift had passed and a stricter policy was 
begun. The English government, having obtained Cape Breton, 
Canada, and Florida by the Peace of Paris, organized them as 
1 See pp. 456, 457. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 587 

three new colonies and began to make arrangements for their 
defense, as well as for that of the older colonies, from the Indians 
and from France and Spain, who would probably try to regain 
them. It was proposed to establish in America an army of ten 
thousand men for this purpose. The number of crown officials in 
America was also to be made larger and the expense correspond- 
ingly greater. To meet these expenses and at the same time to 
check the colonial disregard of the Navigation Acts, which was a 
constant complaint at home, the ministry proposed to adopt a 
new policy. The first point of this plan was to enforce the Navi- 
gation Acts by sending revenue vessels to patrol the American 
coast, and by prosecuting American offenders against the acts in 
the vice-admiralty courts. The second part of the plan was to 
provide one half the necessary funds for the payment of soldiers 
and office holders in America by increasing the taxes on colonial 
importations and by laying a stamp tax. The stamp tax required 
the use in the colonies of stamped paper for deeds, wills, con- 
tracts, and all other legal documents. This stamped paper, 
which could be bought only from government agents, constituted 
a tax on all the colonists who had occasion to carry on any legal 
business. 

Opposition to the "Stamp Act," as this statute was called, 
immediately showed itself. Resolutions were carried in some of 
the colonial legislatures declaring that the colonists had all the 
rights and privileges of English citizens, including control of 
their own taxes, and that the English parliament had no right to 
levy taxes upon the American colonists, because they had no 
representation there. There was a serious riot in Boston and the 
officers who undertook to sell the stamped paper were mobbed. 
Delegates from nine of the colonies met at New York in 1765, 
in what was called the " Stamp Act Congress," and issued a dec- 
laration of what they considered their rights. 

531 . American and English Ideas of Representation. — In the 
American colonies an idea of representation had grown up which 



588 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

was quite unfamiliar in England. In the colonial legislatures the 
great body of the people were represented, and the colonists had 
grown to feel that only those for whom they actually voted could 
properly make laws for them or tax them. While they acknowl- 
edged their dependence on the English crown, they believed that 
parliament represented the people of England only, and that their 
colonial legislatures were coordinate with that body. 

In England representation instead of being a personal was a 
class matter. Parliament included the nobles, the great church- 
men, and the commons. The last class, according to the under- 
standing of the law, included all Englishmen belonging to the 
untitled classes. It made no difference whether a man had an 
opportunity to vote for a member of the House of Commons or 
not. If he was an Englishman and was not a peer, he was repre- 
sented by the House of Commons and bound by its actions. 

The colonists were therefore quite sincere in their claim that 
the taxation which was now imposed upon them for the first time 
by the English parliament was tyranny. The English parliament 
and ministry, on the other hand, were quite as sincere as the col- 
onists when they claimed the right of taxing and making laws 
for Englishmen wherever they might be. The English at home 
and the colonists in America simply held different views as to the 
meaning of this point of the English constitution. 

Whatever may have been the state of the law, as a matter of 
fact the colonists were angered by the new taxation, the harsh 
restrictions on their commerce, and the increased duties on sugar, 
molasses, and other necessary articles. To show their opposition 
to these they not only mobbed the stamp distributors but also 
adopted non-importation agreements, pledging themselves not to 
buy or use any goods imported from England till the obnoxious 
laws were repealed. 

532. The Declaration of Independence. — In 1766, after a year 
of disorder, the English ministry, realizing that the Americans 
were being roused to anger and that almost no revenue was 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 589 

coming in, asked parliament to repeal the Stamp Act, which was 
done. Parliament at the same time, to satisfy its pride, passed a 
resolution declaring that it had a right, if it saw fit, to pass laws 
for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. Nevertheless the repeal 
of the Stamp Act showed that parliament and the ministers did 
not intend in the future to pass such laws unless they were satis- 
factory to the Americans. The colonists met their action half- 
way. There was universal rejoicing and they again seemed 
perfectly loyal. 

But this satisfaction lasted for a short time only. King George 
had been bitterly hostile to the repeal of the Stamp Act. He was 
deeply offended with the ministers who had carried the repeal, 
even though it had won back the Americans to their allegiance. 
He thought the colonists ought to be punished for their disorders 
and ruled with a heavy hand. He used all his royal influence 
to induce the ministers and parliament to take a more high- 
handed policy towards them. The next year his wish was carried 
out. What were called the "Townshend Acts" were passed, one 
of which placed a tax on various articles imported into the Amer- 
ican colonies, including twopence a pound on tea. The revenue 
from the tax on tea was to be used to pay government officials in 
America. When the news of this tax came there was a still more 
serious outbreak of resistance in America. From this time for- 
ward hostility between the people of the thirteen colonies and 
the mother country increased steadily. 

In 1767 the legislatures of the colonies were forbidden by the 
government to pass resolutions in opposition to the laws passed by 
parliament, and several of them were dissolved by the royal gov- 
ernors ; in 1768 English troops were sent to Boston ; in 1769 colo- 
nists charged with treason were ordered to be brought home for 
trial; in 1770 there was a riot in the streets of Boston, in which 
the soldiers fired upon the mob and five or six persons were killed. 
In 1774 the five " Intolerable Acts" were passed by parliament 
closing up the harbor of Boston, putting it under military control, 



590 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

taking self-government away from the state of Massachusetts, and 
in other ways laying a heavy disciplinary hand on the Americans. 

The colonists, on the other hand, renewed their resolutions of 
non-importation of English goods, seized the tea on the vessels 
that brought it over and threw it into the water, passed resolu- 
tions of protest, rang muffled bells, and drilled their militia troops. 
Finally, in 1774, a Congress of delegates from twelve of the col- 
onies met in Philadelphia, and determined to make armed resist- 
ance to what they felt to be the tyranny of England. 

The people rose in arms in many colonies. The first blood of 
a long contest was shed at Lexington in April, 1775. Fighting 
followed at several points, and on July 4, 1776, the contest was 
made an irreconcilable one by the Declaration of Independence. 

At several points during the growing bitterness of the last ten 
years a few concessions on the part of the mother country would 
have allayed the excitement of the Americans, perhaps obviated 
the war, and certainly postponed or prevented the Declaration of 
Independence. The feelings of the great body of the people 
were still strongly attached to the home land of their race ; the 
determination to resist by arms, the idea of total separation from 
England, and the interest in the principles of republican govern- 
ment were in the minds of most of the colonists the growth of 
a very short period. This is shown by the series of petitions 
sent by them to the king, and by the long hesitation in Congress 
before the Declaration of Independence was finally made. 

It was the writings and the speeches of. a comparatively small 
group of men, like Adams, Franklin, and Paine, falling on the 
favorable soil of a race of people who had been long used to 
self-government in their colonial assemblies, and who were now 
angered by the oppressive interference of the British government, 
which transformed the colonists from good subjects of a distant 
monarchy into rebels and republicans. On the other hand, the 
greatest influence opposed to concessions to the colonists was 
that of the king. The ministers who favored a more compliant 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 591 

policy either resigned or, as Lord North did, yielded against 
their better judgment to the wishes of the king. The party of the 
king's friends in parliament was always a solid body of supporters 
of measures intended to humble the colonists. Although the 
majority in parliament enthusiastically favored the policy of inter- 
ference in America, that majority took its cue from a few of the 
leaders and but poorly represented the feelings of the great body 
of the people of England. If there had been any way of finding 
the real views of the people, they would quite probably have proved 
far more conciliatory to the colonists than those of the king and 
his party. 

533. Pitt, Burke, and Fox. — America was, however, not with- 
out powerful friends in parliament. Pitt, who was now an old 
man and a member of the House of Lords, having been made 
earl of Chatham, used his remaining influence to obtain the 
repeal of the stamp tax, and favored conciliation at every oppor- 
tunity afterwards. Two younger men now entering upon great 
careers also took the side of the colonists, though they were not 
influential enough to change the main course of events. These 
were Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox. Burke was the son 
of an Irish lawyer and early became known for his great learning, 
his philosophic mind, his vigorous writing, and his thoughtful and 
eloquent speeches. He was introduced into the House of Com- 
mons by the influence of one of the great Whig leaders and soon 
became one of the most prominent opponents of Lord North and 
his policy and a steady though moderate friend of the Americans. 

Fox was a man of very different origin, character, and gifts, 
though he formed a friendship with Burke which lasted for many 
years, and they were close allies in parliament. Fox was the 
second son of Lord Holland, a prominent member of the ministry 
at various times and a very wealthy man. The younger Fox was 
a spendthrift, and lived the wild, reckless life so common among 
young men of the English aristocracy at that time. He gambled 
every night, wasted his father's fortune, and borrowed from his 



592 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

friends to the verge of ruin. At the same time his affections 
were so strong, his nature so lovable, his gifts of eloquence and 
clearness of thought so great, that his friends and even his oppo- 
nents bore with all his excesses and valued him as one of Eng- 
land's greatest statesmen. 

534. The American War. — But neither the eloquence of 
Chatham, the philosophy of Burke, nor the generous sympathy 
of Fox had much influence on the course of the American Revo- 
lution. The fighting spirit of the English people rose with the 
continuance of the war, parliament favored its prosecution, and 
the king was always ready to press his policy of complete coercion 
of the Americans on Lord North when he wavered. On the 
other hand, the distance of America from England, the immense 
extent of its territory, and the inadequacy of English military 
equipment fought for the colonists. 

Congress placed at the head of the army George Washington, 
whose personal dignity, fine character, simple-minded devotion to 
his country, and military abilities proved to be the main factor in 
the ultimate success of the Americans. Most of the pitched 
battles went in favor of the English, and Boston, New York, and 
Philadelphia, the three largest cities, were held by them for a 
longer or shorter time. On the other hand, the Americans gained 
some notable successes. In 1777 General Burgoyne, who was 
marching southward from Canada, was surrounded and forced 
to surrender with his army. This victory caused France, where 
there was some enthusiastic sympathy for the colonists and much 
more desire for revenge upon England, to make an alliance with 
the Americans. 

In 1779 Spain also, declared war upon England, and in 1780 
Holland likewise was drawn into the contest. The British gov- 
ernment, notwithstanding its military successes, had not shown 
itself capable of putting down the rebellion in America. Much 
less was it able to defeat a combination between the colonists and 
the powers of Europe. Therefore when the news of the surrender 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 593 

of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown arrived in November, 1781, the 
Whigs in parliament were able to carry a motion for the discon- 
tinuance of the war in America. Soon afterwards Lord North 
was at last allowed by the king to resign office. His successor 
made peace in 1783, acknowledging the independence of the 
United States of America with boundaries extending westward to 
the Mississippi, bounded on the north by Canada, and on the 
south by the province of Florida, which was now returned to Spain. 
War with France, Spain, and Holland was also brought to a close 
and general treaties were signed at Paris in 1783. 

535. Home Rule in Ireland. — The acknowledgment of the 
independence of the United States was accompanied by similar 
if less thoroughgoing concessions to Ireland. Ireland, like the 
American colonies, had been governed as best suited the interests 
of England, not her own, and as in America this had given rise 
to a spirit of hostility. This hostility was shared even by those 
whose ancestors had come from England, who were Protestants, 
and who were themselves oppressors of the native Catholic pop- 
ulation. It is true that the Protestant part of the population of 
Ireland was represented, though very irregularly, in an Irish par- 
liament which sat at Dublin. But the powers of this parliament 
were narrowly limited. An old act, known as " Poynings's Law," 
passed by the Irish parliament in the reign of Henry VII, required 
that all laws before being proposed in that body should be sub- 
mitted to the king and his council in England and approved by 
them. Another statute passed by the British parliament in the 
time of George I declared that that body could pass laws for" 
Ireland as well as for England and Scotland. Under these con- 
ditions it had been found impossible for Ireland to legislate for 
her own interests, and she had been subjected to much that was 
inconvenient and injurious. In addition to the unhappy penal 
code under which the great mass of her lower Catholic population 
lived, she was also forbidden to export many of her products to 
England, Scotland, the colonies, or foreign countries. 



594 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

An old proverb says that " England's necessity is Ireland's 
opportunity." It proved to be so in this case. When France 
and Spain allied themselves with the American colonies Ireland 
was much exposed to invasion. It was impossible for the English 
fleet and armies to protect the whole coast of Ireland, Scotland, 
and England at a time when the troops were all needed in America 
and the vessels on the coast of America, in the West Indies, and 
in the Mediterranean. Therefore volunteer troops were raised in 
Ireland to the number of fifty thousand men, and although they 
were all nominally Protestants and all professedly loyal, yet 
their existence gave the Irish people and the Irish parliament an 
unwonted boldness. They had now the power to enforce their 
demands. 

The spokesman of these demands was Henry Grattan, the 
greatest lawyer and orator in the Irish parliament. In 1779 
such strong resolutions were carried through that body in favor 
of freedom of trade with England that the next year laws were 
passed in the English parliament putting the two countries on an 
equality in commercial matters and allowing Ireland free export 
of its principal commodities. Then began an agitation for the 
complete legislative freedom of the Irish parliament. It was 
taken up with great enthusiasm by the "Volunteers," and depu- 
ties from their various regiments carried resolutions in its favor. 
In 1782 Grattan brought forward a declaration in favor of a free 
parliament, which was carried unanimously through both houses. 
Under these circumstances the English ministry, not caring to face 
an Irish in addition to an American revolution, gave way, allowed 
Poynings's Law to be repealed in Ireland, and induced the English 
parliament to repeal the act of George I. 

For the next eighteen years Ireland had " home rule," that is 
to say, her legislature could pass any laws which seemed best for 
the country. The executive power was, however, not under the 
control of parliament, as it was exercised by a lord lieutenant 
appointed by the king on the advice of the British ministry. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 



595 



536. Close of Personal Rule of George III. — The resignation 
of Lord North in 1782, the complete independence granted to 
America, and the partial independence given to Ireland not only 
indicated the failure of a coercive policy, but also marked the 
close of the active interference of George III in the affairs of 
government. In 1780 a resolution was carried in the House of 
Commons to the effect that "the influence of the crown has 
increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." The king 
was obliged in 1782 and 1783 to ac- 
cept ministers who were most dis- 
tasteful to him. When, however, 
these ministers failed to retain their 
majority and found it necessary to re- 
sign, he exercised his old claim to 
make his own choice of a minister. 
But the man whom he selected proved 
to be more masterful than the king 
had expected, and George III never 
again became " his own prime minis- 
ter," as he had been called. 

The resistance of America and the 
self-assertion of Ireland had therefore 
not only gained the ends for which 

those countries were striving but had also saved England herself 
from a reintroduction of royal absolutism. 

537. William Pitt the Younger. — The new prime minister 
who came into office in 1783 was William Pitt, the second son of 
the great earl of Chatham. The elder son, who had inherited his 
father's title, was not a man of much ability or political impor- 
tance. The second son and namesake of his father, however, had 
been trained from childhood for a public career, and he devel- 
oped qualities which made him almost if not quite the equal of 
the earl of Chatham. " He is not a chip off the old block, he 
is the old block itself," was Burke's judgment of him soon after 




William Pitt 



596 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

he entered parliament as a young man of twenty. He had not 
the fiery and impetuous eloquence of his father, but his speeches 
were always clear, vigorous, and graceful. He knew what he 
wanted to do, and yet saw clearly what could or could not be 
done in each set of circumstances. He knew how to manage 
men and was willing to be patient. He was moderate, even cold. 
In intellectual abilities he was therefore quite the equal, perhaps 
the superior, of any statesman of his time, although in strength of 
feeling he was inferior both to many of them and to his father. 

Nevertheless he had unbounded confidence in himself, and 
although he had been in the ministry but a few months, was only 
twenty- four years old, and represented a small minority in par- 
liament, when the king asked him to take charge of the govern- 
ment in 1783 he did so without hesitation. He had a hard 
struggle to keep his position. The Whigs were still in a majority 
in parliament and protested against the appointment of a minister 
who did not represent their party. For Pitt, though he called 
himself a Whig, like his father, and in American affairs and some 
other matters had taken the same ground with Burke, Fox, and 
other influential Whigs, had yet put himself on Tory ground by 
accepting a personal appointment as minister from the king. He 
was really throwing down the gauntlet to the old leaders and 
trying to form a new Tory party. 

538. The New Tory Party.' — In this he finally succeeded. 
During his first year of office he declined time after time to 
resign when called upon to do so or when his measures were 
defeated. He believed that the people of the country were tired 
of the old leaders and of their selfish and unpatriotic combina- 
tions. Insufficient as were the means then in existence for voicing 
the wishes of the people, he believed that they would uphold a 
new cabinet freed from the trammels of the old leaders as soon 
as an opportunity was given to express their views. 

He simply waited, therefore, for a good occasion to ask the 
king to dissolve parliament, in the meanwhile taking a moderate 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 59/ 



tone on all questions that came up, boldly refusing to resign, and 
encouraging Fox and his other opponents to an ever-increasing 
violence of expression. His judgment of the popular feeling was 
correct. The people admired his courage, he inherited some of 
the popularity of his father, and in a few months the tide began 
to turn in his favor. Parliament was therefore dissolved in 1 7 84 
and the new elections brought in a good majority of supporters 
of the new ministry. Pitt remained prime minister for almost 
twenty years, and the Tory party 
as he reorganized it and as it was 
strengthened by succeeding events, 
remained in almost unbroken con- 
trol for more than forty years. This 
was a period nearly as long as the 
Whig control during the eighteenth 
century, which had lasted from Wal- 
pole's advent in 1 72 1 to Lord North's 
ministry of 1770, and it was even 
more full of great events. 

539. Defects of the Representa- 
tion. — Pitt desired, like his father, 
that the policy of his government 
should be based on the support of 
the people at large, not on that of 
parliament only. Many recent occurrences had served to show 
how wide was the chasm between parliament and the great body 
of the people. This was due to the bad system of representation. 
It will be remembered that the original plan had been to summon 
to parliament two members from each county and two from each 
considerable town. The list of represented towns had been some- 
what changed since the thirteenth century, but not at all since 
the sixteenth. In the meantime many of these towns had from 
one cause or another lost much or all of their population. A town 
which in 1295 had had two or three thousand inhabitants had 




Gatton "Town Hall ": the Site 
of a Decayed Borough 



598 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

from one cause or another ceased to flourish, and its people had 
drifted off to more active towns, till it had sunk to a mere county 
village, or in some cases had become simply farming ground or 
some country gentleman's park. As the population of a town 
decayed, however, it still retained its right to send members to par- 
liament, and the choice of these gradually came into the control of 
the landowner who possessed the soil on which the town was built 
or who had the greatest influence in that part of the country. 

Thus came into existence what were known as " pocket bor- 
oughs," * because their owners could put their hands in their poc- 
kets and take out the appointment of members of parliament to 
represent them. Several noblemen had each the appointment 
of half a dozen or more members of the House of Commons. 
Many landowners had practical control of at least one decayed 
borough with its representation. The crown also had the appoint- 
ment of a considerable number, since in some of the small repre- 
sented towns so many of the people were in the employ of the 
government, or of contractors for the government, or otherwise 
under government influence, that the king or his ministers could 
always say who should be elected. In these ways more than 
three hundred members of the House of Commons were practi- 
cally appointed by a handful of influential nobles and gentry or 
by the ministers who were in office at the time of an election. 
A combination among these " borough owners," and above all an 
agreement between a number of them and the ministers, could 
almost always control a majority in parliament, quite apart from 
the wishes or opinions of the members elected by more inde- 
pendent constituencies. 

540. Unrepresented Towns and Classes. — On the other hand, 
many large towns and cities had grown up which had no especial 

1 They were also called " nomination boroughs," because their repre- 
sentatives in parliament were named or nominated by a landlord ; " close 
boroughs," because the group of voters was a restricted body ; and " rotten 
boroughs," because the population was decayed. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 599 

representatives in parliament, their inhabitants voting, when quali- 
fied, simply for the two representatives of the whole shire in which 
the town lay. This had been especially true since the beginning 
of the Industrial Revolution, when large manufacturing towns were 
growing up in a part of the country which had previously but 
a sparse population. In these a numerous, active, and wealthy 
population was almost without representation in parliament. The 
property qualification for voting and other restrictions resulted in 
the exclusion from the franchise of the middle and lower classes 
of the population, even of those towns and counties which did 
have representatives in parliament. In 1768, when the popula- 
tion of England, Scotland, and Wales was about 8,000,000, or 
probably 1,600,000 grown men, there were only some 160,000 
voters. In other words, out of every ten grown men in the coun- 
try one had a vote, the other nine had none. 

As a result of these inequalities parliament but poorly repre- 
sented the nation, and it was possible for the ministers and the 
majority in parliament to have one set of wishes, and the great body 
of the people to have quite another. The recognition that they 
had no real control over the policy of the government made the 
people far more disorderly and reckless than they would have 
been otherwise, as violence was almost the only way in which 
they could exercise any influence. 

541. The Lord George Gordon Riots. — This had been shown 
in the Wilkes affair, in a great many mob insults to Bute, North, 
and other ministers, and even to the king himself. It was now 
still further shown by the " Lord George Gordon Riots " in 1780. 

Views of religious toleration had been growing during the more 
enlightened century which had just passed and among the more 
enlightened classes which were represented in parliament. The 
old dread of the Roman Catholics had passed away very largely 
since the country had settled down under its new Protestant 
dynasty and since other interests had so largely taken the place of 
the old religious contests. As a result of this feeling parliament 



6oo 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



in 1778 made a beginning of the abolition of the old drastic laws 
against the Roman Catholics. 

In the country at large, however, feeling was not nearly so lib- 
eral, and many took alarm at the changes. Parliament was not 
trusted, as it was not under the control of the community, and 
an unreasoning fear that more far-reaching changes were to be 
introduced spread abroad. Protestant associations were formed 
and began an agitation for the repeal of the late laws. The head 
of this agitation was a certain Lord George Gordon, a young man 
of enthusiasm but not of an entirely sound mind. In 1780 he 




An Election in the Eighteenth Century (drawn by Hogarth) 

sent out an appeal for a body of twenty thousand Protestants to 
meet him in St. George's Fields, London, and go with him to the 
parliament house to present a special petition. A much larger 
number gathered, rioting broke out, the entrances to the house of 
parliament were invaded and the members mobbed, the disorder 
spread through London, and for five days the city was in the 
hands of an uncontrollable mob. Roman Catholic chapels were 
sacked and burned, and houses and stores of Roman Catholic 
tradesmen were destroyed, while those of members of parliament 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 6oi 

who had advocated any legislation in their favor were plundered 
and burned, and many persons killed. Finally the king, who was 
never lacking in courage, called together his council and urged 
upon them the use of military force to put down the riots. The 
troops were therefore ordered to take vigorous measures, and at 
the cost of some five hundred persons killed and wounded order 
was restored. A number of rioters were executed and officials 
punished, and parliament adhered to its former action. 

542. The Reform of Parliament. — Old abuses of many kinds 
survived because there was so little connection between parlia- 
ment and the people. Every effort made by reformers to put an 
end to bribery, to lessen the number of sinecure offices, to exclude 
men from parliament who were under the control of government, 
or in other ways to introduce purity and justice was met by resist- 
ance due to the existence of the close-borough system. The united 
devotion and interest of the country could scarcely ever be ob- 
tained for any measure because the country was not really repre- 
sented in its legislature. Many leaders therefore had long looked 
to a change in this system as a necessary step to be taken before 
any further reforms could be accomplished. Any plan of this kind 
intended to improve the condition of the representation came to 
be known as " reform of parliament." 

The earl of Chatham had announced in his last ministry that 
he intended to introduce a measure for parliamentary reform, but 
his' failure in health and his resignation led to the plan being 
dropped at that time. After the close of the American war 
popular meetings were held and organizations formed to demand 
various reforms, among which that of parliament was prominent ; 
but nothing was done. Soon after the younger Pitt entered the 
House of Commons he brought in a bill to take away represen- 
tation from a number of the close boroughs and to give their 
representatives to the most populous counties, where the right of 
voting was more general. This bill was defeated, though it was 
strenuously supported by Fox. 



602 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Now that Pitt was prime minister it might be expected that a 
reform bill would be carried, and in 1784 he introduced a measure 
by which he proposed to abolish many of the nomination bor- 
oughs, paying the owners for their loss. It was defeated and Pitt 
gave up the attempt to force through parliament a measure which 
was so much opposed to the interests of a great majority of its 
members. It still remained, however, a subject of agitation in 
the country and was proposed again from time to time even in par- 
liament itself. In 1792 a long petition was presented showing 
that a decided majority of the members of the House of Com- 
mons owed their election to not more than one hundred and fifty- 
four influential men. Pitt himself opposed these later attempts 
to bring about reform, notwithstanding his early efforts. As a 
matter of fact a great occurrence had by this time taken place 
in Europe which led Pitt and the great body of the nobility and 
upper classes in England to oppose everything which threatened 
to give greater power to the lower classes. 

543. The French Revolution This occurrence was the out- 
break of the French Revolution. For a long time the necessity 
for extensive reforms had been even more evident in France than 
in England. In 1789 a National Assembly of the representatives 
of the French people was called by the king of France to devise 
means of overcoming the financial difficulties of the government. 
The Assembly gave but slight attention to financial matters but 
proceeded within the years from 1789 to 1791 to introduce the 
most radical reforms into every department of French society and 
government. The king was deprived of most of his former powers 
and a representative system of government was established. A 
" Declaration of the Rights of Man " was issued which laid down 
the principles on which, in the opinion of the Assembly, govern- 
ment and society should be constructed. These principles were 
similar to those expressed in the American Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and if generally accepted would have transformed the 
existing system of every country of Europe. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 603 

An effort was made to introduce social along with political 
equality. France was divided into " departments " with new 
boundaries, the church reorganized, "aristocracy abolished, and 
many institutions which had existed for long centuries were super- 
seded by new arrangements based on universal equality. This 
transformation was not accomplished without much violence. 
There were many riots in the streets of Paris and throughout the 
country. The Bastille, a royal fortress in the heart of Paris, was 
captured by the mob on July 14, 1789. There was much con- 
fiscation of property belonging to the nobles and the church. 
Many of the upper classes fled from the country and representa- 
tives of the middle and the lower classes came into control. 

544. English Opinion on the Revolution. — These changes in a 
neighboring and rival nation were looked upon with various feel- 
ings in England. A great number of the people, including some 
such prominent men as Fox, welcomed the change and believed 
that it would result in the greater happiness and welfare of the 
French people and of the human race. 

Following the example of France they turned their attention 
to affairs at home and began an agitation for a reform of parlia- 
ment, for a milder libel law, for the abolition of the slave trade, 
and for the removal of many old abuses in the government and 
laws. They revived old Whig associations, the " Constitutional 
Society" and the "Revolutionary Society," and these adopted as 
their principles the advocacy of universal suffrage, more frequent 
elections for parliament, and other measures which would have 
put the control of government more completely in the hands of 
the masses of the people. From 1789 to 1792 they sent repeated 
letters of congratulation to the French Assembly. Still other 
societies were soon formed, such as the " Friends of the People/' 
many of whose members believed in a republic and wished to 
see one established in England. 

While many men in England were thus encouraging and imitat- 
ing the French Revolution, many others believed that the personal 



604 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

outrages and injustice to individuals and to the upper classes in 
France would lead to mere anarchy without the possibility of orderly 
reform. They thought that the Revolution was a reckless and 
injurious overthrow of established order that was sure to go from 
bad to worse in France and to give an evil example to the people 
of other countries. 

Of the latter views Burke made himself the special representa- 
tive. In 1790 he issued a pamphlet called Reflections on the 
French Revolution, in which with great philosophic insight he 
called attention to the weak points in the revolutionary move- 
ment and prophesied the more extreme lengths to which it would 
go. This book not only had a great influence but it also served 
as a statement of principles in which many of the old Whig party 
believed. With Burke they soon separated themselves from the 
rest of their party, who were led by Fox, and eventually joined 
the Tories, who supported Pitt. This addition of strength made 
that minister and his party all powerful. 

545. War between England and France. — For a while Pitt 
occupied a middle point between those who admired and those 
who opposed the French Revolution, and as prime minister fol- 
lowed a policy of carefully keeping England from taking any 
part in the internal troubles of France. He was anxious for 
unbroken peace, for reform measures in England, and for an 
increase of commercial exchanges with other countries. He 
hoped, moreover, that the excitement in France would diminish 
and that that country would gradually settle down into a constitu- 
tional monarchy like England herself. He had therefore every 
reason to avoid any interference with French affairs. 

This policy, however, gradually became impossible. In 1791 
and 1792 there were more massacres in France, the king was 
dethroned, and finally a republic set up. A new Assembly was 
called, which was under the influence of radical Parisian clubs. A 
Committee of Public Safety came into power, which carried out 
ruthless executions of all those who were suspected of disloyalty 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 605 

to the new republic. War broke out between France on one side 
and Austria and Prussia on the other. France was successful and 
began not only a conquest of territories on her border but also an 
extension of the principles of the revolution wherever her arms 
or her influence extended. These principles and their application 
would in time surely bring France and England into conflict, just 
as they had already brought about war between France, Austria, 
and Prussia. Other causes hastened the outbreak. In 1 793, when 
France invaded the Austrian Netherlands and sent her own king 
to execution, Pitt ordered the French minister to leave England, 
and France immediately declared war. After this time war between 
England and France continued without cessation for nine years, 
until a treaty was signed at Amiens in 1802. 

546. Close of Revolutionary Agitation in England. — One of 
the earliest results of the war was the silencing of the revolution- 
ary societies in England. They had become more and more 
outspoken and disorderly in their agitation. Processions passed 
through the streets of London carrying banners inscribed " Liberty," 
"Equality," and "No King." When the war with France broke 
out Pitt and his party came to the conclusion that this was danger- 
ously close to a revolution, and determined to put a stop to the 
agitation if it were in any way possible. Proclamations were there- 
fore issued, the militia was called out, two new treason acts were 
passed, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and a number of 
leaders of the agitation in England and Scotland were prosecuted 
for sedition and sentenced to various periods of transportation to 
the convict colonies. The next year, when the Constitutional and 
the Corresponding Societies called a convention in London whose 
influence over parliament they dreamed might be similar to that 
of the Jacobin Club over the Convention in Paris, the officers of 
those societies were prosecuted by the government for treason. 
The juries could not be induced to convict them of such a high 
crime and they were acquitted. 1 Nevertheless the government 
1 These agitators are often called the " English Jacobins." 



6o6 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



utilized the powers given to it by the new sedition laws to dissolve 
some of the societies and to prevent others from holding meetings. 
Little by little the agitation was suppressed. Popular sym- 
pathy turned to the side of the government. The passion of 
hostility to France grew with the continuation of the war. It 
was generally felt that active approval and praise for France 
should not be openly expressed when the two countries were at 
war. By the year 1795 it may be said that all active reform 
agitation had come to an end. Scarcely anything which savored 
of reform of any kind was carried for the next twenty years. 

547. The Irish Revolution and the Union. — In Ireland, with 
its vast unrepresented and unhappy population and its various 
classes with their different interests, the French Revolution 
exerted even more influence than in England. One of its effects 
was to bring into existence a revolutionary 
society, the ''United Irishmen," whose plan 
was to obtain the help of France, throw off 
the yoke of the English government, and 
establish a republic in Ireland. After much 
plotting, negotiation with France, organiza- 
tion, and drilling, a serious insurrection broke 
out in 1798. There was some fighting and 
terrible atrocities were committed both by the 
rebels and by the English troops, which soon 
put down the rebellion. Several of its leaders committed suicide 
or were killed in resisting arrest ; the others were hung. 

When the revolt was over the English ministers decided that 
the only hope for peace and order in Ireland was to unite her par- 
liament with that of England and rule the two countries as one. 
The great majority of the Irish parliament was at first strongly 
opposed to this plan, but by wholesale bribery and promises of 
peerages a majority was obtained sufficient to carry the necessary 
bills. There was no opposition in the British parliament and the 
requisite measures were, in the same year, 1800, carried in that 




Royal Arms from 
1801 to 1816 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 60/ 




body also. The name of " The United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Ireland " was adopted for the two nations. 1 Thus the parlia- 
ment at Dublin disappeared, and that which met at Westminster 
in 1 80 1 became known as the first "united" or "imperial" parlia- 
ment. It included not only the members from England, Scotland, 
and Wales, but also one hundred members from Ireland in the House 
of Commons and twenty-eight Irish peers in the House of Lords. 
548. Bad feeling between England and Ireland. — The legisla- 
tive union of Ireland with Great Britain came nearly a hundred 
years later than that of Scotland with England and was practically 
identical with it in principle and intention. Many circumstances 
connected with the Irish union, however, 
were different, and these served to make 
it a heavy burden to both countries and 
the source of embittered contests which 
have continued to the present time. In 
the first place, the union was forced upon 
the Irish legislature and the Irish people 
against their will. The bare majority 

vote in its favor obtained in the Dublin parliament by bribery and 
management by no means constituted a willing acceptance of the 
union. The great body of the Irish have therefore always felt that 
the British government was a usurping power, governing them as 
a tyrant, not as a voluntarily chosen ruler. Secondly, the English 
'have always looked upon the Irish with a certain amount of con- 
tempt. In discussing in the united parliament matters relating 
to Ireland the ministry early formed the habit of neglecting or dis- 
regarding the judgment and the knowledge of the representatives 
of Ireland, and simply overwhelmed them by enormous majorities 
made up of English and Scotch members. As a result legislation 
for Ireland for almost three quarters of a century was unwise and 
unpopular to an almost incredible degree. 

1 At the same time the title " King of France " was dropped by the king 
and the fleur-de-lys removed from the coat of arms. 



Union Jack after the Union 
with Ireland 



608 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Finally, the religious incompatibility of the two nations was 
intensified rather than moderated by the union. Probably seven 
eighths of the Irish people were Roman Catholics and only one 
eighth Protestants. Roman Catholics could vote but could not 
hold office or be members of parliament. They were not, there- 
fore, properly represented, being restricted in their choice of 
members of parliament to persons not of their own religious faith. 
There was nothing in the government to arouse the interest or 
secure the loyalty of the masses. The best that could be hoped and 
the most that was ever obtained was the sullen and uninterested 
submission of the Irish people to what they felt to be an alien 
and despotic government. Other causes combined to make the 
history of Ireland during the nineteenth century an unhappy one, 
but the most fundamental cause has been that she has not been 
able to work out her own salvation in her own way. 

549. Resignation of Pitt The last of the difficulties men- 
tioned above — the lack of religious equality between the two 
nations — was no part of the plan of the union as formed by 
Pitt. He had intended, and indeed promised the Irish leaders, 
to repeal the law excluding Roman Catholics from parliament ; 
and this was clearly understood to be one of the terms of the 
agreement by which the union was carried. Pitt knew that he 
could count on a majority in parliament to support him in this 
plan, and proceeded to the preparation of a bill for their 
emancipation. But there was one influence of which he had not 
taken proper account. This was the resistance of the king. 
Opponents of the Roman Catholics, even some members of 
the ministry, went to the king privately and urged him to in- 
terpose his power, even to the extent of vetoing such a bill. 
George III had always been extremely conscientious in religious 
matters and he was bigoted in opposition to Roman Catholics. 
He asked Pitt, therefore, not to introduce such a bill, but the 
prime minister declared that he would fulfill his promises or 
resign. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 609 

The king still persisted in his opposition, and as he was now 
becoming an old man and more than once had had attacks 
of insanity, and as opinion in the ministry and parliament was 
much divided, Pitt preferred to resign rather than carry the con- 
test farther. The project of giving relief to the Roman Catholics 
was given up, and Pitt after being prime minister seventeen 
years resigned his office in 180 1. 

550. Abolition of the Slave Trade. — Various ministries followed, 
including a return of Pitt to power in 1804 ; but he died in little 
more than a year, when a ministry of all parties was formed, the 
most influential member of which was Fox. He also died in 1806, 
the same year as Pitt. During his short ministry, however, he was 
instrumental in securing the adoption of one great reform. This 
was the passage of the law by which English vessels were pro- 
hibited from taking part in the trade in slaves between Africa and 
America. This was an old if somewhat disreputable branch of 
commerce in which English merchants, especially those of the 
west of England, had won much wealth. It was said that at one 
time sixty thousand negroes were yearly taken from the coast of 
Africa to the West Indies and to American states and colonies. 

About 1783, a young graduate of Cambridge, named Clark- 
son, became impressed with the evils of this trade when engaged 
in preparing material for an essay on the subject. He afterwards 
devoted many years to collecting evidence of its horrors. He 
learned and published the fact that vessels bound from Africa to 
America habitually took aboard so many negroes that only a few 
cubic feet of space between decks was allowed for each. He 
described the plan by which they were placed so close as almost 
to touch one another, chained together in long tiers in the hold, 
with so little space above them that they were not able to stand 
or even sit upright. Large numbers died in the stifling air of the 
hold as the vessel sailed through the tropical seas, many others 
became insane, and still others committed suicide by springing 
overboard when they were taken on deck for exercise. The 



6lO A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

terrible inhumanity connected with this traffic had troubled many 
men of benevolent character in England ; the Quakers had peti- 
tioned parliament against it, and Wilberforce, an influential man 
and a friend of Pitt, had made himself the special advocate of its 
abolition in the House of Commons. 

Both Pitt and Fox had become interested in the subject and 
desirous of legislating against it, and from 1788 onwards, at various 
times, measures for the abolition of the slave trade had been intro- 
duced into parliament and carried through some of their stages. 
The pressure of other business, the influence of the merchants who 
were engaged in the trade, and the tide of opposition to all kinds 
of reform had, however, prevented any bill from being actually 
carried until 1806. In that year, while Fox was prime minister, 
a bill was brought in and passed providing that the slave trade 
should cease after January 1, 1808. This was the same date as the 
United States had just fixed for its abolition, so far as vessels bring- 
ing slaves to that country were concerned. In neither country did 
these measures abolish slavery itself, which still continued in the 
West Indian and some other colonies of Great Britain, as it did in 
the southern states of the American Union. In 181 4 most of the 

other countries of Europe abol- 
ished the slave trade, and its 
general condemnation was made 
one of the terms of the Treaty 
of Vienna the following year. 
551. Renewal of the War with 
Medal prepared by Napoleon to be France. — The peace signed at 
. issued at London when he should Amiens in 1802 did not long 
have conquered England continue. Napoleon Bonaparte, 

although only possessing at that time the title of First Consul, had 
become practically the ruler of France, and in fact in 1804 took 
the title of emperor. The war of England against the French 
republic, therefore, was gradually merged into a war against 
Napoleon. England became the soul of the opposition of the 




AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 6ll 



other countries of Europe to the great French emperor. At one 
time or another she formed alliances with Spain, Holland, Prussia, 
Austria, Russia, and some of the minor powers of Europe. When 
the continental countries were defeated and one alliance after an- 
other was dissolved, England regularly set to work to form a new 
coalition. Her wealth enabled her not only to equip and pay 
her own troops but also to subscribe money to keep the troops 
of Prussia, Russia, Austria,- and other countries in the field. 

No account of the frequent and long campaigns and of the 
many alliances can of course be given here. England's part in 
the war on land until 1813 was not either very prominent or very 
successful, but she won great glory 
upon the sea. Over and over again 
she showed herself superior to 
French fleets, even when these 
were joined, as they were later, 
by those of Holland or Spain. 

552 . Nelson. — The great hero 
of her naval history proved to be 
Horatio Nelson, who had been 
brought up in the navy and 
reached the command of a vessel 
before he was twenty years old. 
He served in the American war 
and by the time he was forty had 
taken part in one hundred and 
twenty engagements. In 1797, 

when he was simply a commodore, he helped win a victory off 
Cape St. Vincent over the Spanish fleet which was on its way to 
join the French fleet at Brest. Soon afterwards he was made 
admiral. In 1798, in the Battle of the Nile, fought in Aboukir 
Bay, he destroyed the French fleet and made useless the army 
which Bonaparte had taken to Egypt. In 1805 the greatest and 
the crowning naval battle of the war, fought off Cape Trafalgar, 




6l2 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

resulted in the total destruction of the last considerable fleet 
which the French placed upon the sea during this war. Nelson, 
who had now been made a viscount and had become the idol of 
the sailors and indeed of the whole nation, at the opening of the 
engagement put up the signal, " England expects that every man 
will do his duty." The victory of the English was decisive but 
Nelson fell mortally wounded and died just as he heard the news 
of the destruction of the French fleet. His body was buried in 
St. Paul's cathedral. 

553. Advantages of the War to England. — The command of the 
sea which England thus obtained gave her three great advantages. 
In the first place, she was enabled to ward off invasion and to 
prevent warfare upon her own territory. Secondly, she was able 
to capture almost all the French colonies and even those of 
Holland, after that country had allied itself with France. The 
French possessions in the West Indies, Africa, and the Indian 
Ocean and the Dutch colonies of Java, the Cape of Good Hope, 
and Guiana were one after another seized while their home gov- 
ernments were not in a position to defend them. Most of the 
colonies thus captured were returned at the conclusion of peace, 
but England retained Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies, 
one half of Guiana on the coast of South America, Malta in 
the Mediterranean, and two great stations on the road to India, 
that is to say, the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France. 
Thirdly, England was able to get possession of most of the com- 
merce of the world except that part of it which was carried on 
by the United States and that of the far East. The European 
colonies in America and the native races of Africa and Asia made 
a great market for the manufactured goods which England was now 
able under the factory system to produce in such vast quantities. 
The war, therefore, though it required heavy taxes and enormous 
loans, probably paid for itself to England in the increased extent 
of her dominions and population and in the wealth obtained by 
her manufacturers and merchants. 



AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 613 

554. War of 1812 with the United States. — After the battle 
of Trafalgar and Napoleon's recognition of the impossibility of 
taking an army into England he tried to destroy her prosperity 
by closing to her vessels all the ports of France and her allies, 
which included almost the whole continent of Europe. He an- 
nounced that England herself was blockaded, and that all neutral 
vessels which entered an English harbor and then entered one of 
the continental ports would be seized. These laws were promul- 
gated in the " Berlin Decree " of 1806 and the " Milan Decree" 
of 1807, and are known as Napoleon's "Continental System." 
England retaliated in the " Orders in Council " of 1807 by declar- 
ing all the ports of France and her allies blockaded and requiring 
neutral vessels to stop at a British harbor and obtain permission 
before entering any French or allied port. These rules of action 
were hard on the vessels of the United States, the only important 
neutral power. If they sailed directly for a French port they 
were apt to be seized by English war vessels for violation of the 
Orders in Council ; if they stopped at an English port before 
going to the continent they were seized when they reached it for 
violation of the Berlin and Milan decrees. 

Disputes connected with this matter were accompanied by 
others arising from the English claim of a right to search Ameri- 
can vessels for war material, and her practice of seizing from 
American ships men whom she claimed to be deserters from her 
own navy. These claims, weakly submitted to by the United 
States for a while, led in 18 12 to an outbreak of war between the 
two countries. The land fighting was not considerable, although 
English troops were landed in America, burned the capitol at 
Washington, and were later defeated in an engagement at New 
Orleans. On the sea the English were surprised to find that the 
new nation which had sprung from themselves showed a naval 
superiority which led to the capture of many English vessels. 
The war was closed in 1 814 by a compromise which left most of 
the questions at issue unsettled. At the same time it was quite 



614 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



unlikely that England would in the future try to enforce the high 
claims she had made before the war. The differences between 
the two nations had also lost much of their intensity as a result of 
the close of the great war with France which had brought the 
disputes between them in^to existence. 

555. Close of the War.s. — During the years from 1808 to 
18 1 5 England's part in the wars against Napoleon had become 
more prominent. In the first of those years British troops were 

sent to Portugal and Spain to assist 
the people of those countries to resist 
the French armies. This " Peninsular 
Campaign," as it is called, proved to 
be an extensive series of battles and 
manoeuvres extending over five years. 
Its direction was taken by Sir Arthur 
Wellesley,an officer trained in military 
service in India. He proved to be 
England's greatest general and in re- 
ward for his efforts was made duke of 
Wellington. These efforts were ulti- 
The Duke of Wellington mate ly crowned with success and the 
French were finally driven out of Portugal and Spain. 

By this time the tide of success was turning against Napoleon 
in other directions also. The great army which he led into Russia 
in an attack on the Czar in 18 12 was annihilated by the terrible 
weather, the long marches, and .the slow starvation ; and another 
army which he gathered in 1 813 was crushed by the allies in Ger- 
many. He was deposed in 18 14 and banished to the island of 
Elba, and Louis XVIII was made king of France. A few months 
afterwards Napoleon escaped, returned to France, was accepted 
again as emperor, and organized another army. But his efforts 
were in vain. He succumbed to the united forces of Europe, and 
in the great battle of Waterloo, fought in June, 1 8 1 5 , under the com- 
mand of Wellington, was finally and decisively defeated by an allied 




AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS 615 

army of English and Prussians. The long wars had at last come to 
an end. A series of treaties was entered into at Vienna in 18 14 
and 18 1 5 by England, France, and the other European countries. 

556. Summary of the Period 1763-1815. — The period of 
fifty- two years which intervened between 1763 and 181 5 saw 
a profound transformation in England. The improvements in 
manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation began a series 
of changes which deeply affected all classes of society. The 
old settled ways could no longer be retained. New classes of 
employers and new classes of employees grew up, with differ- 
ent ways of thinking and acting. All parts of the country were 
brought within easy reach of one another, and when the railroad 
and the telegraph were introduced a generation or two later they 
only made more complete the changes which were already begun. 

The struggle with the American colonies not only led to the 
loss of those possessions but also to the breakdown of the narrow 
personal management of parliament by the king and the ministry. 
The English as well as the American people were more free as a 
result of the revolution carried through by the latter. During 
the wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon, England 
obtained an extension of her colonial dominions which in some 
degree made up for the loss of the thirteen colonies in America. 
The long struggle with France, it is true, gave a setback to all 
reforms in England, and Ireland was, after a time of greater lib- 
erty, more completely subjugated than ever before. Neverthe- 
less this condition in England and Ireland could hardly be a 
permanent one. 

The part which England played in the wars necessarily gave 
her a high place in Europe at their conclusion and in the years 
that followed. But the real effects of the Napoleonic wars upon 
her are to be measured not so much by the successes in the 
Peninsula and at Waterloo as by the colonial acquisitions and 
increased trade on the one hand, and the heavy taxes, burden- 
some debt, and dissatisfied population on the other. 



616 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

General Reading. — Green, Short History, chap, x, sects. 2-4. The 
Industrial Revolution is more fully described in Cheyney, Industrial and 
Social History of England, chap, viii, and in Warner, Landmarks of Eng- 
lish Industrial History, chaps, xv and xvi. The American war is well 
described from the English side in Trevelyan, The American Revolution. 
Morley, Edmund Burke ; Trevelyan, Early Life of Charles James Eox ; 
and Rosebery, Pitt, are valuable biographies. Mahan, l7ifluence of Sea 
Power on the French Revolution and The Life of Nelson, are important and 
suggestive books. Macaulay, Warren Hastings and William Pitt. 

Contemporary Sources. — The Junius Letters are published in several 
forms. Documents concerned with the American Revolution are pub- 
lished in Old South Leaflets, Nos. 3, 9, 47, and 68, and in Hart, American 
History told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, parts vi-viii. Burke, Speeches and 
Letters, published in cheap form in Morley's Universal Library, show how 
the French Revolution was looked upon in England. Conditions in parlia- 
ment are well exemplified in Kendall, Source-Book, Nos. 104-107. Some 
of the Junius Letters, No. 45 of the A r orth Briton, the Berlin Decree, and 
several other interesting documents are given in Colby, Selections from the 
Sources, Nos. 97-1 11. Cheyney, Readings, Nos. 365-404. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, describes the Lord 
George Gordon riots, and A Tale of Two Cities a part of the French Revo- 
lution. Scott, Guy Mannering, Redgauntlet, The Antiquary, and St. Ro- 
narfs Well, belong to this period. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, contains 
a vivid description of the battle of Waterloo. Campbell, Battle of the 
Baltic and Ye Mariners of England, are vigorous war poems. Wolfe, The 
Burial of Sir John Moore, refers to an incident in the Peninsular War. 
Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, has a famous passage describing the 
battle of Waterloo. The Irish song, The Wearing of the Green, refers to 
the rebellion of the United Irishmen in 1798. Thomas Davis, The Ger- 
aldines, belongs to the same period. 

Special Topics. — (1) Purchasing of Seats in Parliament, Kendall, 
Source-Book, No. 105 ; (2) The French Revolution, Robinson, Western 
Europe, chaps, xxxv and xxxvi ; (3) Napoleon, ibid., chaps, xxxvii and 
xxxviii; (4) Taxation of the American Colonies, Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 
202-204 ; (5) The Union with Ireland, ibid., Nos. 206-208 ; (6) Reynolds, 
Gainsborough, and Romney, Traill, Social England, Vol. V, pp. 281-301 ; 
(7) Manufacturing Inventions, ibid., pp. 305-317 ; (8) Improvements in 
Pottery, ibid., pp. 317-322; (9) Howard and Prison Reform, ibid., pp. 
482-488 ; (10) The Army during the Wars with Napoleon, ibid., pp. 526-541 ; 
(1 1) Ireland and the Union, Green, Short History, chap, x, sect. 4 ; (12) The 
Battle of Waterloo, Hugo, Les Miserables. 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE PERIOD OF REFORM. 1815-1852 

557. The Early Years of the Peace. — The year 181 5 was the 
close of a long era of war, and peace might well be expected to 
bring better times. Yet the period that immediately followed 
the Treaty of Vienna was not one of prosperity or of national 
happiness for England. The expenses of the war had increased 
the national debt enormously and taxes were therefore very high. 
Many soldiers and sailors were thrown out of employment by the 
coming of peace. The corn laws, an import duty on wheat, 
prevented its importation and therefore kept the price of food 
high. Two or three bad seasons in succession made the price 
still higher. Not so many goods could be exported, now that 
the ships of other countries could again sail on the seas, and 
commerce and manufacturing suffered correspondingly. 

These hard times turned attention to the old abuses in the 
government, which had been to a great extent forgotten or neg- 
lected under the pressure of war. As a result agitation began 
again and a party of radicals was organized which revived the 
old cry for reform of parliament. A well-known newspaper. 
Cobbett's Weekly Political Register, which had always been sold 
for a shilling, was in 181 6 reduced in price to twopence, and 
with great clearness of argument and vigor of style advocated 
reform of parliament as a cure for all the evils of the time. It 
was the first cheap newspaper and immense numbers were sold 
and read. But many of the radicals took more active means 
to express their discontent, and much disorderly agitation marked 
the next few years. The lower classes broke out into riots, held 

617 



6i8 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 




mass meetings, formed societies, and even secretly gathered arms 
and drilled. 

The Tory party was in an overwhelming majority in parlia- 
ment and its leaders were settled in their opposition to reform of 
any kind. They feared lest changes once begun would go farther 
and farther and lead to some such overthrow as the French Revo- 
lution, which had just passed. They felt that the only safety was 
in resistance to the beginning of change. Everything was to be 
kept just as it was. Therefore when agita- 
tion became more widespread the ministry 
obtained from parliament the adoption of 
what were known as the " Six Laws," which 
allowed the government to forbid seditious 
meetings, suspended the writ of habeas cor- 
pus for six months, and provided for the 
speedy trial and conviction of breakers of 
the peace. Popular writers were prosecuted 
for expressions used in their writings, and 
in every way repression was practiced similar 
to the action of Pitt against the agitators of 
the period from 1790 to 1795. 
558. The Manchester Massacre. — These conditions came to a 
head in 18 19 in what was then called the "Manchester Mas- 
sacre." A great meeting was summoned by the leaders of the 
reformers in that city to listen to addresses from popular speakers. 
The mayor and justices of the peace declared this meeting illegal 
and prohibited the holding of it. The leaders determined to pro- 
ceed notwithstanding the prohibition, and on the appointed day 
an immense gathering crowded St. Peter's Field, a park in the 
city. The magistrates had called out a considerable military 
force and determined to enforce their prohibition by the arrest of 
the speakers, although no special act of disorder had been com- 
mitted or seemed likely to be committed. Some constables were 
therefore ordered to make their way through the dense crowd to 



Royal Arms from 1816 
to 1837: a Crown sur- 
mounting the Shield, 
Hanover now being 
a Kingdom 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 619 

the speakers' stand. In doing so they were jostled and jeered, when 
the magistrates seem to have lost their heads and ordered the cav- 
alry to ride down the crowd. The result of their charge was the 
death of several men and the wounding of a large number. 

The use of military forces for police duty has always been 
extremely unpopular in England and this unnecessary and vio- 
lent action of the Manchester authorities aroused much anger 
throughout the country. On the other hand, the prince regent 
and the ministers sent messages of exaggerated praise to the 
magistrates and military officers concerned in the affair, while par- 
liament immediately passed still more repressive laws. For a 
time it seemed that the country was dividing into two camps, — - 
the mass of the people who were demanding reform, and the gov- 
erning classes who were determined to silence their clamor. 

559. George Canning and Moderate Toryism. — The violence of 
the agitation became somewhat less as time passed. From 181 6 
onward a stream of emigration of the working classes began to 
flow towards the United States, Canada, and Australia, and many 
found in these new lands a prosperity which they could never have 
attained at home. Even in England times became somewhat 
better after 1820. Lord Sidmouth, who had been responsible 
for the harshest of the measures against the Radicals, resigned, and 
Lord Castlereagh, the most reactionary of the ministers, died. 
In 1822 George Canning became minister for foreign affairs and 
in 1827 was made prime minister. Tory as he was, he carried on 
a far more liberal foreign policy than that which had been pur- 
sued during the early part of the century, approving the efforts of 
other countries in Europe to obtain greater freedom and giving 
ready acknowledgment to the independence of the Spanish colo- 
nies in America. This made the government more popular at 
home, and even in internal affairs Canning's influence and that of 
some of his colleagues was exercised in favor of certain reforms. 

560. Reform of the Penal Code. — Efforts had long been made 
by certain enlightened men to obtain a reduction of punishments 



620 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

for small offenses, and to these the ministry now gave its support 
In 1800 the death penalty was prescribed for as many as two 
hundred kinds of offenses. Misdemeanors of the most petty 
character were punishable by death. Picking pockets if the 
value of what was taken was as much as one shilling, shoplifting 
if the article stolen was of the value of five shillings, sheep 
stealing, forgery, counterfeiting, and a great many other offenses 
of all descriptions were by law all punishable by death. 

This severe code left no distinction between such a slight 
offense as petty thieving and such a terrible crime as murder. 
The smaller offense was punished by hanging and the greater 
one could be punished by nothing more. So unreasonable and 
so harsh was the system that juries often declared culprits inno- 
cent directly in the face of the evidence of their guilt, or declared 
very valuable articles worth less than five shillings, rather than 
inflict such a heavy punishment for so slight a crime. Many who 
were sentenced to death were pardoned or the death penalty 
commuted to imprisonment or transportation. Punishment was 
therefore very uncertain ; nevertheless crime and its punishment 
were only too common. Hangings at Tyburn in London and at 
corresponding places of execution in other towns were a frequent 
occurrence, and attendance at them was a common and demor- 
alizing form of amusement for the populace. 

The efforts of those who wrote, spoke, and pleaded in parlia- 
me :t for a reduction in the severity of punishments were at last 
successful. Some of the worst evils were removed soon after the 
abolition of the slave trade, and in 1824 Peel as home sec- 
retary, supported by Canning and some of the other minis- 
ters, induced parliament to abolish the death penalty for a great 
many more offenses. Some years afterwards the death penalty 
for forgery, counterfeiting, horse stealing, sheep stealing, and in 
fact for all other offenses except treason, murder, and certain 
other crimes of violence, was removed. Imprisonment for debt 
was abolished in 181 3, the public whipping of women in 182a, 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 621 

and in 1836 prisoners were for the first time allowed to have a 
lawyer to speak for them. 

561. Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, 1828. — But the 

greatest of these early reforms lay in the field of religious tolera- 
tion. It will be remembered that the Toleration Act of 1689 
gave to Dissenters freedom of worship but did not give them 
a right to hold office, while Roman Catholics were given neither 
religious nor political rights. But as time went on the tide grad- 
ually turned in their favor, the laws were not carried out, in all 
points, and Dissenters at least were allowed to hold some offices. 
In 181 2 the Five-Mile and Conventicle acts were repealed and 
in 1828 after a hard contest the Test and Corporation acts were 
also repealed. 1 This gave Dissenters practically the same political 
rights as members of the church of England. Roman Catholics 
had been given freedom of worship in 1778 by the act which 
brought on the Lord George Gordon riots, 2 and the repeal of the 
Test Act in 1828 allowed them to hold most offices. Even yet, 
however, they were excluded from membership in parliament. 

562. Roman Catholic Emancipation, 1829. — Yet this privi- 
lege was just what the Roman Catholics of England and Ire- 
land desired most of all. They felt that so long as they had 
no representatives in parliament they had no real equality with 
Protestants. " Catholic emancipation," as it was called, had long 
been advocated by the more liberal members of the ministry 
and of parliament; but it was still strongly opposed by the 
stricter Tories and by the king. The final change was brought 
about by events in Ireland. In 1823 the " Catholic Association " 
was formed in that country under the leadership of Daniel 
O'Connell, a Roman Catholic lawyer and orator of great power. 
Without actually violating the law this association, which had 
branches all through Ireland, kept up an active agitation, draw- 
ing up repeated petitions to parliament and holding meetings 
at which addresses were made by O'Connell and other leaders. 

1 For the adoption of these acts see pp. 471-473. a See p. 600. 



622 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

In 1828, when a special election for a member of parliament 
from the Irish county of Clare was to be held, the Association 
decided to put up their president, O'Connell, as a candidate 
against the man favored by the ministry. Although Roman 
Catholics could not sit in parliament they could vote, and thou- 
sands of the small farmers of county Clare marched to the polls 
and voted unanimously for O'Connell. At the urgent appeal of 
the officers of the Catholic Association the members abstained 
entirely from drinking, and there was only one intoxicated man 
at the polls, and he was a Protestant and an Englishman, the coach- 
man of O'Connell. Although it was said that thirty thousand of 
the peasants attended the election, there was no disorder nor 
threatening, but only well-disciplined, unanimous determination 
to have their way. 

The only reason the voting farmers were so orderly was 
because they believed that their leaders were about to obtain 
their political emancipation. They would have been just as will- 
ing to obey orders, if these orders had been to fight for their 
rights. The English ministry realized this and perceived that they 
must either give them the representation they were demanding or 
make up their minds to put down another Irish rebellion. They 
chose the former alternative. The duke of Wellington and Peel 
with great difficulty obtained the king's consent to the intro- 
duction of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, and with almost as 
great difficulty induced their Tory supporters in parliament to 
vote for it. It was, however, finally carried in 1829, and the last 
legal restriction on the liberty of Roman Catholics removed. In- 
stead of the old formula, all that was now required was a simple 
oath "on the true faith of a Christian" to support the govern- 
ment and not to injure the established church. On making such 
a promise a Roman Catholic could hold any office to which he had 
been appointed or elected except that of regent, lord chancellor 
of the United Kingdom, viceroy of Ireland, or royal commissioner 
of Scotland. 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 



623 



The Tory ministry had granted these concessions not because 
they approved of them but because to have refused them would 
have brought about still worse results. But the reform of par- 
liament was too far-reaching a change for them to even consider 
seriously. That subject came up again in 1820 and was during 
the next few years vigorously advocated by the remainder of the 
old Whig party and by the new Radical party. However, every 
bill affecting parliament which was brought in was defeated by 
large majorities. When the reformers tried to deprive of their 
representatives certain of the old 
close boroughs where bribery was 
worst, the ministry was strong enough 
to defeat them. 

563. George IV. — George III 
died in 1820 and George IV became 
king. The new monarch was a man 
of low principles and dissolute habits. 
He married a Roman Catholic lady 
in secret but disowned her in order 
to obtain the crown. Later he 
married a German princess in order 
to induce parliament to pay his 
debts, but he soon neglected and 
ill-treated her and finally sought a divorce. He was always deeply 
in debt and took little part in the government except occasionally 
to interpose his influence in opposition to reforms. He was of fine 
appearance and always dressed in the height of fashion and was 
therefore sometimes very unworthily called " the first gentleman in 
Europe." He was amiable and disinclined to severity in punish- 
ments ; but taken all in all he was one of the sovereigns of whom 
England can be least proud in all the long line. In 1830 he died 
and having no children was succeeded by his brother William IV. 

564. A Whig Majority. — The death of the king dissolved 
parliament and necessitated the election of a new one. The 




William IV 



624 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

elections for this new parliament took place in the summer of 
1830. It was a critical time. The old Tory party had been 
much divided by the concessions of the ministry on Roman 
Catholic emancipation. Many of the strictest Tories who were 
borough owners, in order to punish their leaders, returned 
members who would in future be opposed to Wellington, who 
had become prime minister in 1828, soon after the death of Can- 
ning. Causes outside of England deprived the ministry of some 
more of their supporters. In June there had occurred a new 
revolution in France by which the old line of kings who had 
been restored after the downfall of Napoleon were now driven 
out and Louis Philippe, a more liberal king representing the 
middle classes, was put on the throne. The sympathy with this 
occurrence was widespread in England, and thousands of voters 
where they had a chance really to control the elections voted 
in favor of candidates who would oppose the duke of Wellington 
and his party. The old question of the reform of parliament 
was in the air, and every nerve was strained by those who felt 
that the time had at last come when it might be gained. 

The result was a defeat for the Tory party, which had been in 
control now with one short break for forty-six years. When 
parliament gathered in the fall of 1830, and the question of 
reform was brought up, Wellington declared that no reform was 
needed or wanted and stated his intention of opposing it in every 
way. He also expressed his disapproval of the recent liberal 
revolutions on the continent and showed a general determination 
to use all the powers of the government to repress rather than 
to accede to the popular wishes. He was soon outvoted and 
with the whole Tory ministry resigned office. 

565. Introduction of a Reform Bill. — Lord Grey became 
prime minister and a cabinet was formed which included most 
of the more liberal Whigs. A bill for the reform of parliament 
was immediately introduced. It was far-reaching in its character. 
It proposed to deprive the whole group of " rotten boroughs," 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 625 

including sixty small towns, of their separate representation in 
parliament, and to reduce from two to one the representatives of 
each of forty-six other boroughs which were somewhat larger but 
yet of less than four thousand inhabitants each. As Lord Rus- 
sell, who introduced the bill, read the long list of these boroughs 
and explained that the ministry proposed to sweep away all their 
representation and transfer their members to the most populous 
counties and to the large manufacturing towns, the Tory mem- 
bers could hardly believe that the statement was meant seriously. 
But the ministry was quite serious and the bill as it had been 
submitted soon became a matter of intense interest to the whole 
country as well as to parliament. The popular cry, " The bill, 
the whole bill, and nothing but the bill," rang out everywhere. 
Popular associations were formed in the usual way, delegates 
were elected to a national body representing these associations, 
riots broke out here and there, and attacks were made upon men 
who were prominent in their opposition to reform. 

After long debate the majority of the House of Commons 
declared its opposition to the measure. The ministers advised 
the king to dissolve parliament and hold a new election on the 
one great subject of the time. This was done and the election 
took place in the midst of the most intense excitement. The 
result was that all those who had supported the bill were reelected 
and that many of those who had opposed it were defeated and 
their places taken by reformers. When parliament met again the 
bill was introduced a second time and was now carried through 
the House of Commons by a majority of more than a hundred. 
But the House of Lords immediately defeated it by an adverse 
majority almost as large. The months following this defeat of 
the Reform Bill were marked by even greater popular excitement 
than before. When parliament met again in the winter of 1831 
and the ministers introduced the bill for a third time, it passed 
the House of Commons by a still larger majority, and again the 
House of Lords showed their intention of voting against it. 



626 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

566. Dispute between the Houses. — There was now a dead- 
lock. The House of Commons passed resolutions of confidence 
in the ministers, requesting them not to resign, yet the House of. 
Lords would not pass the bill which the ministry were pledged 
to carry. The excitement in the country rose steadily. Riots 
occurred and political associations numbering many thousand 
men sent offers to the ministry to march to their assistance if 
they were needed. At the meetings of these associations reso- 
lutions were passed in favor of the abolition of hereditary nobil- 
ity and the House of Lords. For a time the country stood on 
the brink of civil war. 

There was just one possible way by which the bill could be 
passed. This was for the king, on the advice of the ministers, 
to appoint enough new peers who were in favor of the bill to 
overcome the existing majority in the House of Lords against it. 
William, however, did not like the Reform Bill ; the queen and 
other ladies connected with the court, many Tory noblemen, bish- 
ops, military officers, and others who were opposed to it pleaded 
with him against the plan, and he refused the request of the min- 
istry to coerce the House of Lords in this way. The ministers 
immediately resigned and the king asked the duke of Wellington 
to form a Tory ministry. This action created still greater opposi- 
tion in the country. The newspapers came out with broad black 
lines of mourning. Bells were tolled as if some national calamity 
had occurred. Petitions were sent to the House of Commons 
asking that no more appropriations should be made until the bill 
was passed, and the great northern political unions prepared to 
march in a body to the vicinity of London. 

567. Passage of the Reform Bill of 1832. — Wellington was 
brave enough to undertake the task of forming an anti-reform 
ministry, but he could not find others to fill the remaining offices 
in the cabinet. He had reason also to believe that the troops 
would not obey orders if attempts should be made to dissolve the 
mass meetings by force. He reported, therefore, to the king 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 627 

that he could not form a ministry and advised him to give way. 
William then recalled Earl Grey and the Whig ministers and 
promised to appoint fifty new members of the House of Lords, if 
they were needed to pass the bill. At the same time, however, 
he sent a letter to the peers who were opposing the bill, telling 
them of this agreement and suggesting that they remain away 
from parliament when the next vote was taken, so that such 
action should not be necessary. The duke of Wellington also 
exercised his influence in persuading the opposition lords to 



>'■■ -"Si A-w<m 



CT7eT=: 



'!i« 




n : & 



r;^. 









Belvoir Castle : Country-seat of the Duke of Rutland 

refrain from further resistance. About one hundred of them, 
therefore, absented themselves, the bishops ceased to oppose the 
bill, and early in 1832 it was passed, signed, and became a law. 

The bill had been changed somewhat in its progress through 
parliament but in the main its provisions were the same. It 
took away the special right of representation from all boroughs 
with less than two thousand inhabitants and reduced the repre- 
sentation of others. It then gave more representatives to the large 
cities and the most populous counties, especially those in the north 
of England. It reduced the property qualification of voters for 



628 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

knights of the shire so that all independent farmers and other 
well-to-do inhabitants in the country districts should have a right 
to vote, though laborers would not. In the towns all persons 
occupying houses paying a rent of ^10 a year were given a right 
to vote. This right of franchise may be said roughly to have 
included all persons of the upper and middle classes, but not 
workingmen. The Reform Bill therefore took the control of par- 
liament out of the hands of the narrow aristocracy, which had 
dominated it so long, and put it into the hands of the middle 
classes of England. 

But the way in which the Reform Bill was carried was quite as 
important as the actual changes which it made in the law. It was 
forced by the people, led by a group of liberal ministers, upon a 
reluctant House of Commons, an opposing House of Lords, and 
a king who would have refused to sign it if he had had the power 
to do so. It was the political unions, the mass meetings, the peti- 
tions, the popular excitement, and even the riots, that strengthened 
the ministers and really obtained the success of the bill. It was 
a great popular victory over old established powers and privileges. 
Just as the Great Charter had been wrested by the barons from 
King John, just as the Petition of Right had been obtained by 
parliament from Charles I, just as the Bill of Rights had secured 
to parliament the supremacy over the king, so now the Reform 
Bill of 1832 gained for a much larger part of the people the 
supremacy over the small number that up to this time had alone 
been represented. It was the occurrence which came nearest to 
a real political revolution in the history of England, and it was 
the first step towards the attainment of self-government by the 
whole mass of the English people. 

568. Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. — The adoption of 
the Reform Bill of 1832 was followed by a wave of reform legis- 
lation. Although a decision given by the courts in 1772 had 
declared that slavery could not lawfully exist in England itself, 
and the moment a slave was brought into England he became 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 629 

free, slavery still existed in the British West Indian colonies and 
in South Africa. The law of 1806 forbade the slave trade, so no 
additional slaves could be brought into those regions, but the 
race of negro slaves which was already there continued to exist. 
Many of the arguments which had been used against the slave 
trade could be used just as well against slavery itself, and as a mat- 
ter of fact an agitation for its abolition had been carried on ever 
since 1806. In 1823 and 1831 a few rules for the more merciful 
treatment of slaves and for their instruction had been issued by 
the government ; but not much was accomplished until after the 
passage of the Reform Bill. The parliament elected under the 
new law, however, passed, in 1833, an emancipation bill freeing 
under certain conditions all slaves owned by British subjects or 
in British dominions, prohibiting slavery for the future, and at 
the same time appropriating ^20,000,000 to remunerate the 
former slave owners for their losses. The bill was received with 
great anger and opposition by the planters of the West Indies and 
the Boers of South Africa, but they had to submit. 

569. The Factory Act of 1833. — Something of the same feel- 
ing of sympathy with those who were overworked and miserable 
led to the passage of another somewhat similar measure. This 
was a law prohibiting the employment in spinning and weaving 
factories of children below nine years of age, restricting the labor 
of those between nine and thirteen to eight hours a day, and 
of those between thirteen and eighteen to twelve hours a day. 
Night work was also forbidden for all young persons, and certain 
requirements were made for holidays, education, and the clean- 
liness of the factories. Factory inspectors were appointed whose 
sworn duty it was to see to the enforcement of this law. There 
proved to be working in the factories more than one hundred 
and fifty thousand children who came under the general super- 
vision of the factory inspectors. 

Factory laws had been in existence for some years before this 
time, but they had not been enforced. Many more were adopted 



630 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

in later years carrying the care of the government over children, 
young persons, and women much farther. 

570. Reform of the Poor Law. — The next year, 1834, the old 
poor law of Elizabeth, with the many abuses which had grown 
up about it, was repealed and a new law was passed in its place. 
This law seemed harsh, as it put a stop to many forms of relief 
which had long been given to the very poor. But it was in real- 
ity an attempt to arouse a greater feeling of independence and a 
more earnest effort on the part of the laboring classes to support 
themselves and to make it more possible for them to do so. 

Before this time people of the lower classes who moved from one 
place to another were liable according to the Law of Settlement 
to be returned by the authorities to the place from which they 
had come, for fear their support would fall on the parish in which 
they wished to settle. The Law of Settlement was repealed the 
same year and even the poorest people might now go freely wher- 
ever they wished or wherever they could find work. Before 1834 
a great number of persons received entire or partial support in 
their own households. The new law required that paupers could 
only get relief by living in the poorhouse. In order to bring their 
wages up to a certain amount weekly payments from the poor 
funds had previously been made regularly to laborers in propor- 
tion to the number of their children. Wages were in this way kept 
low and men were made paupers who should have been independ- 
ent workingmen. Such payments were now forbidden. Under 
the old system pauperism had become so general that one out of 
every six of the population of England was receiving entire or par- 
tial support from the community. The poor tax was not only 
growing to be an almost intolerable burden, but, worse still, it 
was destroying the manliness and self-respect of the lower classes, 
making them feel that they were dependent on the classes who 
paid the taxes, and destroying all inducements to thrift and self- 
control. The new bill in addition to the requirements already 
mentioned provided for a more centralized administration of the 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 631 

poor laws under a national board. Its result was to lessen very 
materially the payments for the support of paupers and in some 
degree at least to reach the higher object of increasing the self- 
dependence of the lower classes. 

571. Municipal Corporations Reform Act. — In 1835 a munici- 
pal corporations act was passed. This was intended to introduce 
much the same changes into the government of towns and cities 
as the Reform Bill itself had introduced into the government of 
the whole nation. It took away from the cities and boroughs 
the old charters by which such different governments had been 
established in them, and organized them all in the same general 
form. The control of the affairs of each city and borough was 
put in the hands of the whole body of the property holders 
instead of being exercised only by a small group of the citizens, 
as had been generally the case before, or by all the inhabitants, as 
had been previously the case in a few instances. 

572. Cheap Postage. — At about the same time, through the 
influence of a member of parliament named Rowland Hill, the 
government introduced the system of cheap postage. Before this 
time postage on letters was charged in proportion to the distance 
they were carried, to their shape, and to the number of sheets 
they contained. The charge was always high, the average for all 
Great Britain being about 6d. From London to Scotland it was 
apt to cost a shilling or more, and even from London to the coast 
it cost Sd. Mr. Hill was struck with the unwisdom of this sys- 
tem and devoted much time to an examination of postal mat- 
ters with a view to their improvement. In 1837 he proposed a 
scheme by which cheap postage should be introduced, the speed 
and frequency of mails increased, a uniform rate established, and 
prepayment secured by the use of stamps. He trusted to the 
increase in the number of letters to cover the expense. Against 
much opposition his plans were finally carried through parliament, 
id. per half ounce being charged to all parts of the kingdom. It 
was an immediate success, the profit from the post office becoming 



632 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



> 



much larger and the convenience to the public infinitely greater. 
After a short time no one doubted the superiority of the system 
of cheap postage, the number of letters sent each year increasing 
by many millions. 

573. Accession of Queen Victoria. — In 1837 William IV died 
and a new reign began. As he had no children the crown went 
to Victoria, the only daughter of his next younger brother, the 
duke of Kent. 1 She was only eighteen at the time of her acces- 
sion, and as her gray-haired uncles, the dukes of Cumberland and 
Cambridge, the great duke of Wellington, Lord Melbourne, the 
prime minister, and other members of the privy 
council knelt before the young girl to take the 
oath of allegiance both they and she may well 
have been impressed with the responsibility of 
her position. Her reign was destined to be the 
longest in English history, grave questions were 
impending, parties were much embittered 
against one another, and difficult decisions would 
have to be made from the beginning to the end 
of the reign. At this time she was entirely unknown to her people, 
as she had been brought up in much seclusion ; but her education 
and training had been good and her subjects soon learned to recog- 
nize her clear judgment, her moderation, her perception of the 
true position of the sovereign in the English system of government, 
and the thorough goodness of her character. 

In 1840 she married her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 
who came to live in England but was given no recognized position 

1 The descent of Queen Victoria was as follows : 
George III, 1 760-1820 

George IV Frederick "William IV Edward Ernest Adolphus 

1820-1830 duke of York 1830-1837 duke of Kent Augustus duke of 

died 1827 died 1820 duke of Cambridge 

Cumberland 
Victoria 
1837-1901 




Royal Coat of 
Arms since 1837 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 633 

m the government. In private he was, on the whole, a wise and 
impartial adviser of his wife, and his influence with her and with 
others was thoroughly good for England. By his refined tastes 
and intellectual interests he gave encouragement to the arts and 
to literature at a time when they received but scant recognition, 
and many public measures of usefulness received his steady and 
intelligent support. 

574. Liberals and Conservatives. — The Whigs and those who 
acted with them during the contests on the Reform Bill and 
the other measures which were adopted soon afterwards grad- 
ually gave up the old party name and began to call themselves 
" Liberals." This name soon came to be the only one used 
and was regularly applied to the party of which Earl Grey, Lord 
Russell, Lord Brougham, and Lord Melbourne were the leaders. 
The name "Whig" went out of existence. The move moder- 
ate Tories, on the other hand, accepted loyally the results of the 
Reform Bill but insisted that further changes should be made 
only in a conservative and cautious manner. They came there- 
fore to be known as " Conservatives." The party name " Tory " 
went out of use except as it was used to describe a man who 
was extremely and narrow-mindedly conservative. The most 
influential representatives of the Conservative party were the 
duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. The latter especially 
was the real reorganizer and leader of the Conservatives after 
the adoption of the Reform Bill. He was prime minister for five 
important years, from 1841 to 1846. Yet in the main the Liberals 
kept control of the government till after the middle of the cen- 
tury, when they gradually became tired of a reforming policy. 
Their ambition in that direction had been satisfied and they 
believed that no further political changes should be made. They 
defeated measures for admitting Jews to parliament, for lowering 
the franchise, for introducing the ballot in voting, and for more 
frequent elections, and no further great reforms were to be put 
to their credit for many years. 



634 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

575. Steamboats, Railroads, and Telegraphs. — Outside of par- 
liament, however, there was much progress. The steam engines 
that had been invented and introduced into factories to furnish 
power for machinery were gradually applied to purposes of loco- 
motion. Steamboats were brought into use on the rivers and 
coasts about 181 2. In 1838 steam vessels began regularly to 
cross the ocean. In the meantime there had been much ex- 
perimenting in the construction of engines for traveling on 
land. Finally a successful locomotive was invented by George 
Stephenson, a self-educated engineer in the mining regions. In 
1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened, on 
which his engines were used, and a much better and more 
famous road between Liverpool and Manchester was opened 
in 1829. On this road Stephenson's engines drew light trains at 
the respectable speed of thirty-five miles an hour. Nine years 
afterwards a road from London to Birmingham was opened and 
soon all parts of England were connected by rail. The old 
stage-coaches soon gave way to railroad trains for passenger travel, 
and just as fifty years before hauling of goods on horseback and 
by wagon had given place to transportation by canals, so now 
the railroads secured from these most of the freight traffic. 

During the years between 1837 and 1842 the electric telegraph 
was being perfected and brought into general use. The English 
inventors whose names were most prominently connected with the 
telegraph were Cooke and Wheatstone, but the alphabet invented 
by the American, Morse, and his instruments were early intro- 
duced into England. Cheap postage, the railroad, and the tele- 
graph made traveling rapid and the sending of messages and news 
quick and cheap. 

576. Trade Unions. — England was becoming a vastly richer 
country, manufactures and commerce were becoming more exten- 
sive, and the whole character of life more active and energetic 
than it had been in the past. Nevertheless there was no less 
discontent than before. This was especially true of the great 




a 

h 

1 

o 
u 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 635 

body of the working classes. There were many evils and disad- 
vantages of their condition which they tried in various ways to 
overcome. Trade unions had been formed from an early period 
in the nineteenth century, but they were illegal. In 1824, among 
the other emancipating statutes of the time, the laws forbidding 
their existence were repealed. In 1825, however, parliament felt 
that it had gone too far, withdrew the emancipating law of the 
previous year and passed a much more moderate statute, which 
only legalized trade unions in a few of their aspects and under 
special circumstances. Nevertheless they continued to grow and 
their members took an active part in the agitations that led to the 
Reform Bill of 1832. In 1833 the first great national trade union 
was formed, and an effort was made to introduce an eight-hour 
day. The strikes for this purpose were unsuccessful and the 
efforts to present great petitions to parliament and to hold mon- 
ster meetings of workingmen were met by threats to use military 
force against them, and by the prosecution and transportation 
of a group of country laborers under an old statute against the 
taking of oaths. The trade-union movement had a temporary 
setback, but nevertheless it continued to spread and in later 
years received legal recognition till the majority of workingmen 
in most of the higher industries were organized in this way. 

577. Chartism. — Many of the leaders of the workingmen were 
not satisfied merely to form unions in their trades. They wished 
to obtain better representation in parliament for the mass of the 
people. There had been deep disappointment with the result of 
the Reform Bill. It had given votes only to the upper and 
middle classes, and the measures which had been passed by par- 
liament since had been for the most part in the interest of those 
classes. The lower classes seemed to have received nothing but 
the more rigorous poor law. 

The increased well-being of the country was not fairly dis- 
tributed. There was still much hardship and dire misery. When 
bad times came suffering increased, and there were many who 



6$6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

felt that this was due to the failure of parliament to pass laws in 
the interest of the whole people. The agitation that had died 
down after the Reform Bill was therefore soon renewed and 
steadily increased. In 1837 at a conference among some of the 
more radical members of parliament and leaders of the work- 
ingmen the "People's Charter" was drawn up. This was a 
declaration in favor of six points of further reform : (1) uni- 
versal suffrage ; (2) a newly elected parliament every year ; (3) 
vote by secret ballot ; (4) abolition of the property qualification 
required of members of parliament; (5) payment of members of 
the House of Commons ; and (6) the division of the country into 
electoral districts each of which should contain the same number 
of inhabitants. 

For many years "The Charter " was the watchword of the dis- 
contented classes. A party known as the " Chartists " was formed, 
which contained but few voters but was strong in numbers and 
activity. Newspapers were established, pamphlets published, and 
mass meetings held. More than once Chartism became a serious 
threat to the government and prosecutions were brought against 
its leaders. In 1839 an d 1842 national conventions of Chartist 
delegates met and drew up petitions to parliament for the adop- 
tion of the Charter, signed by several thousand names. Parlia- 
ment, however, refused to consider these petitions on account of 
the disorderly manner in which they were presented. In 1848 
there was a great meeting of twenty-five thousand Chartists in 
London, and a branch who called themselves " Physical-force 
Chartists " even proposed a violent attack upon the government. 
But troops were brought to London by the ministry and hundreds 
of special officers were sworn in to prevent the petitioners 
approaching the parliament house in any threatening numbers. 
A great petition for the passage of the Charter, which had been 
long prepared and which was said to have five million signatures, 
was presented to parliament by delegates from this meeting. 
When the petition was examined, however, it was found to contain 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 637 

only something over a million names and many of these were 
fictitious. The same name was often repeated twenty or more 
times ; the queen's name and those of many of the members of the 
House of Lords and other well-known opponents of Chartism had 
been signed to it as a practical joke, and even names of characters 
from the popular operas appeared. The whole affair was thrown 
into ridicule and the petition rejected amidst laughter and without 
debate. The movement had reached its culmination and failed. 
Soon afterwards the Chartist party broke up and some of its more 
violent members were prosecuted and punished by the government. 

578. Proposed Repeal of the Union with Ireland. — In Ireland 
the excitement which O'Connell and other leaders had aroused 
in the agitation for Roman Catholic emancipation did not sub- 
side after their success in 1829. Very soon the demand arose 
that the union between England and Ireland carried by such 
objectionable means in 1800 should be repealed. All the familiar 
forms of agitation were made use of by those who desired this 
action. Immense meetings in Ireland at which the people were 
deeply stirred by O'Connell's wonderful eloquence were particu- 
larly prominent ; but no English party gave any encouragement 
to the plan of repeal. Whatever may have been the circumstances 
under which the union had been originally obtained, it was now 
looked upon in England and Scotland as an absolutely permanent 
settlement. O'Connell and the other leaders continued to organize 
their immense gatherings, doubtless wishing to impress the gov- 
ernment with the belief that they could throw Ireland into civil war 
at any time if they wished, and so gain their objects, as in 1829. 

There is little doubt that a rebellion might readily have been 
precipitated, but O'Connell did not really intend to put the 
matter to the test. The agitation came to its conclusion in 
1843. A great meeting which had been called together at Clon- 
tarf, an historic spot made famous by an old Irish victory over the 
Danes, was prohibited by the government on the ground of prob- 
able disorder. The people waited for the word of O'Connell, 






638 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

holding themselves ready to resist if he so ordered. His decision 
came in the form of an appeal to them to obey the government. 
They did so and separated to their homes before the meeting was 
organized. But the magic of their leader's influence was gone. 
The people had believed that ultimately they were to fight against 
the English government, and felt that if they were simply to obey 
that government blindly, their agitation was meaningless. 

579. The Rebellion of the Young Ireland Party. — Nothing was 
done towards repeal, and the agitation in this form soon after- 
wards died away. But a number of the younger, more highly edu- 
cated, and enthusiastic men who had been followers of O'Connell 
in this movement now broke away from his peaceful influence 
and formed a society known as "Young Ireland." Their object 
was to awaken the national pride and sense of independence of 
the Irish people, then to gain their separation from England, and 
finally to form an Irish republic. This object they were willing 
to strive for, if need be, by rebellion. Before much of the pre- 
paratory work had been done, however, the series of revolts on 
the continent of Europe in the year 1848 set them an irresis- 
tible example and they were drawn into a foolish and hopeless 
outbreak. Nothing was accomplished except the capture and 
punishment by transportation of the most active of the leaders 
and the break-up of the Young Ireland party. 

580. The Irish Famine. — The most serious occurrence in the 
history of Ireland during this period was, however, not a voluntary 
matter, but a terrible catastrophe due to natural causes. The 
custom of raising potatoes as their principal crop and relying on 
them almost entirely for food had grown up among the small 
farmers who formed the great bulk of the population. More food 
can be raised to the acre in the form of potatoes than in the form 
of any other crop which will grow in a temperate climate. More 
than a majority of the population of Ireland lived practically 
entirely on potatoes, and half the remainder relied on them for 
the greater part of their diet. This was a condition of great 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 639 

risk. If anything should destroy the potato crop, the people 
would be left without food. 

In the fall of 1845 this was what happened. In the midst of a 
long damp spell a disease attacked the potato plants and within 
a few weeks the greater part of the crop over most of Ireland 
rotted in the ground. The suffering was terrible and became worse 
the next year when it proved that the disease was so strongly 
intrenched as to destroy the crop a second time. Great efforts 
were made by the government and by charitable associations to 
relieve the sufferings of the famine-stricken people. Wheat and 
Indian corn were sent from America, from England, and from 
other countries, and relief work on roads was provided by the 
government so that wages could be earned. Finally soup kitchens 
were established where the famine was worst and the people too 
sick, poor, and weak to prepare food for themselves. But with 
all these efforts many thousands died of starvation and disease. 

A great movement of emigration from Ireland to America and 
the British colonies began in 1846 and has continued with little 
abatement ever since. It has gradually reduced the population 
from about eight millions to less than five millions. Ireland is 
probably the only country in the world which has lost population 
during the last half century. 

581. The Corn-Law League. — The Irish famine brought to a 
head a discussion which had long been in progress in England. 
This was the proposed abolition of import duties on grain, or 
what was known in England as the repeal of the corn laws. 1 For 
centuries a duty had been placed on grain imported into England in 
order to encourage its production by enabling the English farmer 
to sell his products at a good price and to avoid being undersold 
by grain brought from other parts of the world. During the wars 
against Napoleon the duty had been increased. But as England 

1 The word corn in England when used without any further description 
usually means wheat. What is called corn in America is not very largely 
used in England, and is known there as Indian corn or maize. 



640 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

became more of a manufacturing country, not enough grain was 
raised to feed the people and some had always to be imported. 
The corn laws now seemed less reasonable, as they simply gave 
larger profits to one set of people, the farmers, while they made 
all other classes pay more for their food. 

By this time, however, the rents which the farmers had to pay 
had become so high that they needed large profits on their crops 
to be able to pay them. The landlords who received the rent in 
their turn bore the burden of the enormous taxes for the poor, 
and they declared that they needed these high rents in order to 
be able to pay the taxes. The landlord class was by far the most 
influential in parliament, and men of that class were not likely 
except under great pressure to change the laws which favored 
their own interests. 

In 1838 the "Anti-Corn-Law League" was formed at Man- 
chester in the center of the manufacturing district, and an active 
movement was instituted to induce parliament to remove the taxes 
from grain. Richard Cobden and John Bright rose to fame in 
connection with the work of the league. They were both mer- 
chants, both gifted with great ability as speakers, and strongly 
convinced of the injustice of the corn laws and of the immense 
benefit that would come to English workingmen if their food 
could be made cheap. With these men and others as leaders, 
pamphlets and newspapers devoted to the subject were showered 
over the country, lecturers were trained and sent into every town 
to explain the principles of what came to be known as " free 
trade." "To buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dear- 
est" was laid down as a general right and a general principle of 
action, and a condition of the law under which this could be 
done was treated as the ideal to which legislation should approach. 

A great part of the people were gradually converted to these 
principles and to the belief that the old system of duties ought 
to be abolished. But not so much impression was made on par- 
liament. Every year some advocate would introduce a measure 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 641 

for the repeal of the duties, but it was always voted down by a 
majority that it seemed impossible to overcome. Eventually 
Cobden and Bright became members of parliament and pleaded 
for their views there, others took up the cause, one by one 
prominent members of the Liberal party and even some of the 
Conservatives accepted their principles, and it began to seem 
that at some time or other the corn laws would be abolished. 
The Irish famine suddenly brought the matter to an issue. It 
seemed absurd to be charging heavy import duties to keep out 
grain when it was so sadly needed to relieve starvation within the 
country. In 1846, therefore, Sir Robert Peel, the Conservative 
prime minister, introduced and against much opposition carried 
through a measure for the abolition of the duties on wheat* and 
other grain. This action allowed the principal food of the people 
to be brought into England far more cheaply than before, reduced 
the price of the grain that was grown at home, and made bread 
cheap for the working classes. 

582 . Introduction of Free Trade. — With the corn laws went 
other forms of protection. Even before this abolition Peel, who 
had become converted to the entire system of free trade, had 
been instrumental in removing all duties on exports and diminish- 
ing or abolishing the duties on certain imports. The high duties 
on sugar imposed for the benefit of the sugar-growing British 
West Indies were reduced the same year that the corn laws were 
swept away. The Navigation Acts which had come down from 
the seventeenth century as a means of preserving English com- 
merce to English ships were abolished in 1849, tne vessels of all 
other nations being now allowed to come into and go out of Eng- 
lish ports on the same conditions as vessels owned in England. 
Within a few years, between 1846 and 1849, protective duties 
were removed from some two hundred articles which had before 
been taxed. England thus gave up entirely her old policy of 
protection and established free trade in all articles of import and 
export. Only a few small import duties have since been collected 



642 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

for purposes of revenue. In 1852 a formal vote was taken in 
the House of Commons by which four hundred and sixty-eight 
members, including Conservatives as well as Liberals, expressed 
their approval of the principles of free trade, against fifty-three 
who still opposed those principles. Since that time England has 
been distinctly a free-trade country. No measure which is based 
in any degree on the principle of protection to any branch of 
industry has had up to the close of the nineteenth century any 
chance of being adopted. 

583. The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851. — England was 
able to take this position because she was in advance of all other 
European countries in commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. 
To display to her own people and to those of other nations the 



Crystal Palace 

fruits of this progress, and to induce foreigners to bring their 
productions to England for purposes of comparison and obser- 
vation, the International Exhibition of 1851 was organized. It 
was first suggested by Prince Albert, and his constant efforts and 
great influence were needed to keep up the interest in the proj- 
ect and carry it into execution. He well explained its object in 
a public speech as being intended " to give the world a true test, 
a living picture, of the point of industrial development at which 
the whole of mankind has arrived, and a new starting point 
from which all nations will be able to direct their further exer- 
tions." It was the first of the series of world's expositions in 
various countries which have been so numerous in the last half 
century. It was held in a large building of iron and glass known 
as the "Crystal Palace," erected in Hyde Park, in the center 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 643 

of the city of London, and it brought together the productions 
of nature, manufacture, and art from all parts of the world. It 
was a great success in every way. It not only paid all its expenses 
but also left a surplus which was used for the foundation of the 
South Kensington Museum and Art Schools. It was visited by 
more than six million people and awakened general interest and 
admiration both from Englishmen and foreigners. From it much 
was at the time hoped for in the perpetuation of peace and the 
substitution of rivalry in trade for rivalry in war, but this has 
unfortunately not been justified. 

584. Summary of the Period 1815-1852. — The peace which 
had now lasted for almost forty years was a longer period of ex- 
emption from war than England had experienced for centuries. 
It made possible the devotion of attention to internal questions 
and a general settling up of many old matters of complaint. No 
period, therefore, has seen changes of more fundamental and more 
permanent importance than this. The most significant of these 
changes consisted in the transfer of control of the government from 
the aristocracy to the middle classes by means of the Reform Bill 
of 1832. The adoption of that measure made a great break with 
the past and made all later changes easier. Reforms that could 
never have been brought about under the old form of parliament 
were now carried out in rapid sequence. Not only those which 
have been described, such as the abolition of slavery, the factory 
laws, and the repeal of the corn laws, but also a vast number of 
minor reforms, were achieved. In 1835 the custom of forcing 
men into service in the navy was abolished; in 1840 the practice 
of sending boys up chimneys for the purpose of sweeping them 
out was forbidden; in 1848 the first "public health" act was 
adopted and a beginning made in the improvement of sanitary 
conditions and the establishment of parks in the crowded cities 
of modern times. Men began to look at public questions in a 
different way, and the duty of parliament to make laws for the 
benefit of the whole people was practically recognized. 



644 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

General Reading. — Green, Short History, ceases to be of value in this 
period. McCarthy, The Epoch of Reform (Epochs of Modern History), 
is a good short account of the reforms. Walpole, History of England 
since 1815, 6 vols., is the fullest account of the period. McCarthy, History 
of Our Own Times, 3 vols. This work begins in 1837, at the accession of 
Queen Victoria, its first volume covering the period of the latter part of 
this chapter. It is the most interesting and vivacious account of the period. 
Molesworth, History of England since 1830, gives the fullest account of 
the Reform Bill struggle of any of the general histories. Paul, History 
of Modern England, is a new work in course of publication beginning with 
the year 1846. Among the best of the many biographies of prime minis- 
ters and other influential men are Thursfield, Peel (English Statesmen 
series); Morley, Cobden ; Stapleton, Canning; Sanders, Palmerston ; 
Dunckley, Melbourne. Greville, fournal of the Reigns of George IV and 
William IV, is an important and interesting record. 

Contemporary Sources. — The debates in parliament and the laws that 
were passed during this period are accessible but they are mostly very 
voluminous. The larger histories of the time give long quotations from 
the speeches, and much of the real history of the period is to be found 
in the contemporary literature, such as essays, speeches, novels, and poetry. 
The collected speeches of Lord Ashley, earl of Shaftesbury, are particularly 
valuable. Interesting extracts concerning the Manchester Massacre, the 
Reform Bill, and the duke of Wellington are given in Colby, Selections 
from the Sources, Nos. 113, 116, and 117. The acts of 1828 and 1829 
granting religious equality, the Reform Bill of 1832, and the act for the 
abolition of slavery are given in Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, 
Nos. 260-264. Some speeches and notes concerning the reform move- 
ment and a valuable Chartist petition are given in Kendall, Source-Book, 
Nos. 1 29-1 31. A number of documents of the emancipation and reform 
periods are given in Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 210-224. A somewhat larger 
number and variety of documents is in Cheyney,. Readings, Nos. 405-434. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Kingsley, Yeast and Alton locke ; the first deals 
with rural conditions, the second with the Chartist movement. George 
Eliot, Silas Marner and Felix Holt, the Radical ; Disraeli, Sybil, or The 
Two Nations. Several of the novels of Dickens illustrate the general 
reforming interests and efforts of the period, especially Oliver Twist and 
Bleak House. Mrs. Gaskell, North and South. Among the many poems 
which illustrate events or characters of the time, some of the best are 
Tennyson, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, Dedication of the 
Idylls of the King, Rizpah, and many others, like Locksley Hall, which 
refer to social conditions ; Mrs. Browning, The Young Queen, Victoria's 



THE PERIOD OF REFORM 645 

Tears, Crowned and Wedded, The Cry of the Children ; Thomas Cooper, 
W. J. Fox, William Morris, and Charles Mackay, various Chartist 
songs and poems. 

Special Topics. — (1) The Great Writers of the Early Part of the 
Period, Gardiner, A Student's History of England, pp. 887-890 ; (2) Great 
Writers of the Latter Part of the Period, McCarthy, History of Our Own 
Times, Vol. I, chap, xxix ; (3) Daniel O'Connell, ibid., chap, xii ; (4) The 
Young Ireland Party, ibid., chap, xviii ; (5) Factory Laws, Cheyney, Indus- 
trial History, pp. 244-260; (6) Trade Unions, ibid., pp. 277-293; (7) Dis- 
appearance of the English Yeomen, Traill, Social England, Vol. VI, 
pp. 75-83; (8) Religious Conditions in the Middle of the Nineteenth 
Century, ibid., pp. 133-150; (9) The Introduction of Railways, ibid., 
pp. 199-210; (10) The Army and Navy in the Middle of the Nineteenth 
Century, ibid., pp. 120-133 and 262-273, 



CHAPTER XX 
THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY. 1852-1904 

585,, The Crimean War. — Soon after the middle of the cen- 
tury England's long period of peace came to an end and questions 
of internal policy gave place in public attention for a while to the 
problems of a serious foreign war. The War of the Crimea, into 
which England was now drawn as an ally of Turkey and France 
against Russia, arose from the general condition of affairs in east- 
ern Europe. Russia and Turkey were ancient enemies, between 
whom conflicts had broken out time and again. Russia had now 
become so strong and Turkey so weak that there was danger that 
Russia would at some time seize all the remaining possessions of 
her rival in the eastern Mediterranean. If Russia should possess 
Constantinople, the entrance to the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and 
Syria, along with her other dominions, her power would be so 
great that England might find her road to India closed and the 
other countries of Europe made powerless to resist the over- 
grown might of the Slavonic Empire. It had therefore become 
the interest and the policy of the western nations of Europe, and 
especially of England, to support Turkey and prevent any aggres- 
sion upon her by Russia. 

In 1853 new disputes broke out between the two eastern 
powers which led to the invasion of Turkish territory by Russia 
and the destruction of the Turkish fleet in one of the Black Sea 
ports. England and France thereupon in 1854 allied themselves 
with Turkey and declared war on Russia. The war soon centered 
at the great Russian fortress of Sebastopol, in the Crimea, a long 
promontory jutting out from the north coast of the Black Sea. 

646 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 647 

Here English and French troops were gathered, a naval force 
concentrated, and a strong effort made to capture the fortifica- 
tions and destroy the base of Russia's power. 

Sebastopol proved to be almost impregnable, and the allied 
armies finally settled down to a siege that lasted through the 
whole of one bitter winter and most of the next summer. Before 
the siege was begun and during its continuance there were several 
hard-fought battles with the Russian armies which opposed the 
landing of the allied troops and tried repeatedly to raise the siege. 
On.e of the battles, that of Balaclava, fought in October, 1854, was 
the occasion of the famous " Charge of the Light Brigade." x The 
general in command, seeing from his elevated position the Russians 
carrying off a small battery of cannon, sent orders to have them 
recaptured. This order was misunderstood by those who could 
not see so well, a dispute occurred, an officer lost his temper, and 
finally an order was given for the light brigade of cavalry, consist- 
ing of six hundred and seventy- three men, to charge a Russian 
battery at the end of a long valley and in a position where its 
cannon could not be held even if captured. With wonderful 
coolness and bravery the cavalry rode off on their hopeless mis- 
sion. Through a valley two miles long, subjected to a steady fire 
from Russian artillery on both sides, they rode up to the fortifica- 
tions and then returned, losing two hundred and forty-seven men, 
or almost one half their number. "It is magnificent, but it is not 
war," said a French officer as he watched them from a hill. 

During the winter of 1854-185 5 the sufferings of the English 
in their camp before the fortified city were terrible. The long 
period of peace which England had enjoyed since the battle of 
Waterloo had left the army badly disorganized. The food sent 
to it during the siege was insufficient and slow in arriving ; there 
were few army nurses and the hospitals were poorly managed ; 
useless red tape prevented different departments working together 
and delayed the distribution of supplies even after they reached 
1 The subject of Tennyson's well-known poem. 



648 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the Crimea. The officers, although brave in battle, showed poor 
judgment in managing the campaign and the siege. The unavoid- 
able evils of climate and distance were added to those of misman- 
agement. The winter was a cold one, cholera broke out in the 
camp, and almost half the army was carried off by this and other 
diseases. 

All these sufferings of the soldiers and blunders of the army 
authorities were reported in the home newspapers, this being the 
first war in which regular war correspondents were sent to the 
field. The tide of popular condemnation of the government rose 
higher and higher, until finally the coalition 
ministry of Lord Aberdeen, under which the 
war had been entered upon, was forced to resign 
and Lord Palmerston became prime minister. 

Under the new ministry energy was infused 
into the war operations and improvements 
were introduced into the military administra- 
tion. Miss Florence Nightingale was sent out 
to Constantinople as superintendent of a group 
The Victoria Cross, of volunteer women nurses. She proved to 
instituted in 1857 have great ability and good judgment and suc- 
for Personal Acts cee d e d m introducing system and good man- 
o ravery lr agement into the hospitals, as well as giving 

untold personal comfort and consolation to the 
miserable soldiers suffering from sickness and wounds. By the 
spring months of 1855 conditions had improved and in the fall 
of that year Sebastopol finally fell. In 1856 a peace was signed 
at Paris by which all captures made during the war were restored, 
ships of war of all nations were excluded from the Black Sea, 
Russia agreed not to fortify Sebastopol, the Danube River was 
opened to free navigation, and a guarantee of good treatment of 
her Christian subjects was given by Turkey. The one great point 
gained by England was the check placed at that time upon the 
advance of Russia; but even this has not been finally effective. 




THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 649 

In the long run the war does not seem to have accomplished 
much. In 1870 Russia declared that she did not any longer in- 
tend to be bound by the Black Sea clause, and she has since estab- 
lished a powerful fleet there and rebuilt and fortified Sebastopol. 

586. Affairs in India. — The Crimean War was hardly over 
when England had to face another conflict which in many ways 
came even nearer home to her, and which threatened the pos- 
session of her greatest dependency. The progress of English 
dominion in India had been one of steady acquisition of control 
over the native states. Soon after the time of Clive another great 
governor, Warren Hastings, whose administration extended from 
1773 to 1785, by a series of extensions of the influence of the 
East India Company, brought a great part of northern and central 
India under its direct government. His despotic and oppressive 
actions against the native princes led to his impeachment by 
parliament in 1788, but he was finally acquitted and his acqui- 
sitions of territory were retained by the company. In 1784 
parliament passed a law placing the control of the political 
affairs of India in the hands of a branch of the English minis- 
try, leaving commercial affairs still in the unrestricted charge of 
the company. 

During the war against Napoleon, French influence led to 
much greater opposition on the part of the native princes. The 
English, however, carried on several successful wars and enforced 
a system of alliances by which several of the native rulers who 
were still reigning were allowed to carry on their internal affairs 
to suit themselves, but were each forced to receive an English 
resident who should direct foreign affairs. These were called 
"protected" states, or states " in dependent alliance." After 
18 1 5 there were a number of small wars in India by which 
either direct control or dependent alliances were forced upon 
the natives, and British influence was carried all the way to the 
northern and western borders. Between 181 5 and 1856 there 
were nine separate wars of this description. 



650 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



587. The Sepoy Rebellion. — Many of the inhabitants of India 
were dissatisfied with English rule, but it was not supposed that 
any widespread rebellious feeling existed until suddenly in 1857 the 
sepoy mutiny broke out. The native troops in the English service 
rose first at Meerut, refused to obey their officers, marched to Delhi, 
where they were joined by three other regiments of sepoys, and put 
a descendant of the old Moguls on the throne, thus trying to make 
the rising a national movement. Soon at almost every military 
station m the north of India a similar mutiny had taken place 
and the whole country was in the hands of the mutineers. The 
native troops and populace attacked the English officers, soldiers, 
officials, and merchants together with their families, and massacred 

men, women, and 
children. Delhi, 
Lucknow, and 
Cawnpore were 
the most impor- 
tant centers of the 
revolt. It did not 
spread into the 
districts of Madras 
and Bombay, nor into the newly annexed district of the Punjab, 
but for a few weeks in June, July, and August, 1857, all northern 
India seemed to have fallen again into the possession of the native 
races. The English were either suffering siege and massacre 
or, scattered in small bodies, were confronting masses of revolted 
native soldiers vastly superior in numbers. 

Yet the courage and the discipline of these bodies of English 
troops and the vigor and skill of their officers rapidly won back 
the territories that had been lost. A body of a few hundred in 
one place and a small army of a few thousand in another 
defeated the mutinous sepoys in engagement after engagement. 
English troops were brought from the loyal districts, and^ others 
who were on their way to China were turned aside to India when 




Small Coin struck in a Native Mint under 
English Protection 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 65 1 

they reached the Cape of Good Hope. Although in many cases 
these were too late to save the English women and children from 
being massacred under the most terrible circumstances, yet in 
other cases they came in time to succor the survivors and pre- 
vent further attacks from the rebels. In putting down the revolt 
the English inflicted severe punishment upon the mutineers. All 
who were suspected of participating in the massacres were put to 
death as ruthlessly and often with scarcely less cruelty than they 
had themselves used. Many were shot from the mouth of cannon. 1 
Others after surrender were shot down in cold blood by English 
officers. Before the end of the next year, 1858, the revolt was 
completely stamped out. 

588. The Empire of India. — In England the occurrence of 
the mutiny turned attention to the form of government of India. 
It was felt to be unreasonable that a great part of the British 
Empire, with many millions of people, should be governed so 
largely by the East India Company, a commercial organization. 
A bill was therefore passed in 1858 transferring the sovereignty 
and territory of the East India Company to Queen Victoria. A 
secretary of state for India was created, who is a member of the 
cabinet, and the governor general's title changed to that of viceroy. 
The company remained in existence, but only as a voluntary 
trading association carrying on commerce with India and having 
no share in its government and no monopoly of its trade. 

Since the mutiny some of the protected states have come 
directly under British control, and two or three frontier districts, 
including the whole of Burma, have been either annexed or 
placed in the position of dependent states. Comparatively little 
fighting has been necessary for this purpose, although a large army 
of sepoys with English officers and a number of English regiments 

1 This was a form of punishment in which the victim was bound against 
the muzzle of a cannon which was then discharged. It was especially 
terrible to the Hindoos, who for religious reasons dread the destruction o£ 
the body. 



652 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

have been kept up. The British dominion in India is in the main 
a great, peaceful administration carried on by about one hundred 
thousand soldiers, officials, merchants, missionaries, and others of 
English race, including women and children. Their power is exer- 
cised over some three hundred millions of the various native races ; 
that is to say, there are about three thousand natives to one person 
of English birth in India. It was desired by the government to 
express in the title of the English sovereign this relation of Eng- 
land to India. The title formerly held by the sovereigns of Delhi 
was therefore revived, and in 1876 parliament passed an act add- 
ing to the other titles of Queen Victoria that of " Empress of 
India." January 1, 1877, she was proclaimed ruler of India under 
that title at Delhi and in every province of India. 

589. Petty Wars. — England was not engaged only in the 
Crimean War and the great struggle in India. Her widespread 
colonial dominions have brought her into contact with so many 
nations and barbarous races that she has been drawn constantly 
into wars of small extent in which her overwhelming strength 
left no possible doubt of the result, but which have nevertheless 
been expensive in money and lives and have been opposed by 
the moral feelings of the country. In 1840 and 1842 there were 
such wars with Egypt, Afghanistan, and China. The last of 
these is known as the " Opium War," because the original dis- 
pute arose in connection with an effort on the part of China to 
prevent the importation of opium into her dominions. The 
opium trade was carried on by British merchants and by others 
under British protection ; and the poppy from which the opium 
is derived was one of the most profitable products of British 
India. Therefore, although the dispute arose in an effort to 
prevent insult to the British flag, it resulted in forcing the opium 
traffic upon China in favor of English commerce. Although 
there was no clear settlement of the opium question its importa- 
tion into China continued. As a further result of this war a 
number of Chinese ports were opened to commerce. Another 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 653 

war broke out with China in 1856 and continued till 1858, when 
a treaty was made which carried still farther the opening of 
China to trade and intercourse with Europeans. Still a third war 
occurred in i860. In 1862 there was a short war with Japan. 
Between that year and 1878 there were similar petty wars with 
Ashantee, Abyssinia, Afghanistan, the Maoris of New Zealand, and 
the Kaffirs and Zulus of South Africa. A still greater conflict was 
by that time threatening in South Africa, but its discussion can 
be better left till later. 

590. The Civil War in America. — The civil war in America 
exercised a strong influence on England. The sympathies of the 
upper classes were on the whole with the South. The southern 
type of society and manner of life in America were much like 
those of the landed aristocracy of England. Commerce also 
drew England and the southern states closely together, many 
goods of English manufacture being taken to that part of the 
United States, and large amounts of cotton being brought thence 
to England. Relations had never been very cordial between the 
English and American governments and there had been frequent 
disputes on boundary and other questions. The civil war, for 
which the government at Washington was held responsible, 
brought heavy loss to England. The southern ports were block- 
aded by the national government and English goods could not 
be taken into them as usual to be sold, nor could the cotton 
which was so necessary as raw material for the English factories 
be obtained from thence. 

The danger was therefore very grave that the sympathy of the 
English government with the South and its anger at the North 
would bring about a war with the United States. At the very 
beginning of the war an incident occurred which almost precipi- 
tated this calamity. Two southerners, Mason and Slidell, who 
were being sent out to represent the Confederate government in 
England and France, made their way to Havana and there em- 
barked on an English vessel for Europe. On their voyage they 



654 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

were overtaken by an American war ship which insisted on exer 
cising the right of search and finally seized the two southern repre- 
sentatives and carried them off to New York. The English 
government immediately demanded their release and apologies for 
the indignity shown to the British flag. When the President hes- 
itated to yield to this claim, troops were sent from England to 
Canada and all preparations made for war. The United States, 
however, gave way, acknowledged that the commander of their 
vessel had done wrong, and placed the southern commissioners 
again on an English vessel. 

This crisis was passed, but others arose from time to time. The 
English government issued a proclamation of neutrality warning 
its subjects to take no part in the contest on either side. Although 
this seemed fair the North felt that it was an approach towards 
the recognition of the South as a separate power and resented it 
deeply. The cotton famine in Lancashire, where most of the fac- 
tories were located, became the cause of great suffering. The cot- 
ton mills were almost all closed, thousands of laborers were thrown 
out of work, and many manufacturers failed. There was constant 
pressure on the government to acknowledge the southern states 
as an independent nation. This would have enabled England 
to open trade and intercourse with the South, though it would of 
course have led to war with the United States. Yet the govern- 
ment preserved its neutrality, though its friendliness to the South 
was apparent. One form which this took was the very slight effort 
made to prevent the building of southern cruisers in English ports. 
Several such vessels were built and launched in England. They 
were met afterwards at sea by southern commanders, equipped in 
other ports or countries, and proceeded to destroy many northern 
merchant ships. The most striking case of this kind was that of 
the "Alabama," built at Liverpool in 1862 and allowed to sail, not- 
withstanding the protests of the representatives of the American 
government. The responsibility of the English government in 
some of these cases was so evident that when the claims made 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 655 

for losses by the United States were after long negotiations 
referred in 1872 to an international tribunal sitting at Geneva, 
Switzerland, the decision was given in favor of America, and Eng- 
land was ordered to pay to that country a sum of $15,500,000. 

On the whole, however, the government kept faithfully to its 
principle of neutrality, and this against much pressure at home 
and provocation abroad. The great mass of the laborers in the 
cotton-manufacturing districts, who because of the closing of the 
factories were in reality the greatest sufferers from the war, bore 
their privations with patience and self-control. In contrast with 
the upper classes they were almost unanimously in sympathy 
with the North, because they looked upon the war as a contest 
for the destruction of slavery. This made their endurance easier 
to them, and liberal donations of money, food, and clothing from 
all classes helped to tide over the difficult period till the war came 
jto an end in 1865. 

591. Lord Palmerston. — The prime minister during this period, 
and the most prominent minister of England for many years, was 
Lord Palmerston. He was one of those men who had been orig- 
inally moderate Tories under the influence of Canning, but who had 
afterwards drifted into the Liberal party during the agitation for 
the first Reform Bill. His service as minister in Tory cabinets had 
extended from 1809 to 1830 ; afterwards as foreign secretary and 
then as prime minister he was an influential member of almost 
every Liberal cabinet for thirty-five years, till his death in 1865. 
He had always adopted a high tone in foreign affairs, and many 
of the foreign disputes into which England had been drawn were 
largely a consequence of his policy. He had usually been able to 
win success for his party and his country in these contests, and he 
had thus become extremely popular and influential. To one object 
to which the Liberal party was becoming more devoted, however, 
he was steadily opposed. This was the "further reform of parlia- 
ment on the lines of the Reform Bill of 1832. He believed that 
the form of government established at that time should be final 



656 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and opposed actively or passively any efforts made to change it. He 
was in fact more interested in questions of external than of internal 
policy, and so long as he lived his party reflected this feeling. In 
1858, however, he secured the admission of Jews into parliament. 

592. Gladstone and the Revival of Parliamentary Reform. — 
Many other prominent men in the Liberal party, although they 
had refused for many years after 1832 to agree to any further 
reform and had opposed the efforts of the Chartists, came in time 
to believe that the right of voting should be extended more widely 
and that the districts which were represented should be made 
more nearly equal. This agitation began about 185 2. The leader 
who best represented these views and who was most influential in 
carrying out further reforms was William Ewart Gladstone. Mr. 
Gladstone, who served altogether for more than sixty years in par- 
liament, entered the House of Commons in 1833, the year after 
the adoption of the first Reform Bill. He was then a Conservative, 
though one of the moderate group which was under the influence 
of Sir Robert Peel, just as Palmerston and Peel himself had been 
under that of Canning. Gladstone was soon admitted to one of the 
Conservative ministries in an inferior office, and after that time for 
some years was a member of almost every ministry of that party. 

His opinions, however, like those of Peel, gradually changed in 
a liberal direction. He became famous for his knowledge of the 
details of financial and commercial questions and for his skill in 
explaining them. In 1853 he became chancellor of the Exchequer 
and usually afterwards occupied that office when in the min- 
istry. He introduced life and fire and eloquent interest into all 
his financial statements and into the defense of the principles 
upon which they were based. Often by his eloquence he held 
the House of Commons spellbound for hours at a time while he 
explained and advocated measures of the most commonplace finan- 
cial character. In 1858 he became chancellor of the Exchequer in 
a purely Liberal cabinet and from that time forward was identified 
with the most advanced section of the Liberal party. 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 657 

Gladstone was one of those who advocated further reform of 
parliament and for several years gave eloquent but unsuccess- 
ful support to the efforts that were made to obtain it before it 
became a party measure. Several bills for the purpose were intro- 
duced between 1853 and 1863 by private members of parliament 
and even by members of the ministry, and reform was advocated 
mildly in the queen's speech. But it was known that the prime 
minister, Lord Palmerston, was privately opposed to it ; there was 
much division within the party on the question, and for some years 
no measure favorable to reform made its way through parliament. 
In 1865, on the death of Lord Palmerston, Gladstone became 
the unquestioned leader of the Liberal party, though Lord Russell, 
as the older and more prominent man, became prime minister. A 
reform bill was now introduced and heartily advocated by the 
Liberal ministry, but was defeated in the House of Commons 
notwithstanding the strong popular interest in reform which was 
showing itself in the country. The ministry then in 1866 resigned 
and a Conservative ministry came into office. 

593. Disraeli and Acceptance of the Principle of Reform. — 
Although Lord Derby, a veteran statesman, became prime min- 
ister, the most prominent and influential member of this cabinet 
was Benjamin Disraeli. This able and active minister had entered 
parliament in 1837, four years after Gladstone, and remained 
a Conservative through the whole of a long and influential parlia- 
mentary career. He had few advantages of position, being of 
Jewish descent, though his father had become a Christian in reli- 
gion, and having many peculiarities of manner and appearance that 
were distasteful to members of parliament ; he was, however, bril- 
liant in speech and far-seeing in policy, and long before 1866 had 
become the real leader of the Conservative party. Disraeli and 
Gladstone were opponents on almost all measures, and this 
antagonism continued throughout their lives. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the Liberals had been defeated 
on the question of reform, the Conservatives felt that some kind 



658 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of a reform bill must be introduced and carried. The discussion 
of the subject had continued for such a long time and the expres- 
sion of public opinion had been so strong that every one had come 
to feel that further reform of parliament must be made, and the 
only question was the form and extent of the change. Much had 
occurred to prepare the nation for it. 

England was a very different country from what it had been in 
1832. In the first place, intelligence was far more widespread. 
Cheap postage, the telegraph, rapid traveling by railroad, many 
newspapers, the spread of education, had all combined to awaken 
men's minds and to make every one acquainted with what was 
going on in the world. Secondly, the working classes, from whom 
the new voters would principally come if the suffrage were extended, 
had been rising in position. The factory laws had shortened hours 
of labor and improved the surroundings under which the laborers 
worked. The trade unions had done much to train them in self- 
government, and the number, order, and discipline of these bodies 
when they appeared in public processions made a great impression 
on those who saw them. The success of the. North in the Ameri- 
can civil war was in a certain sense a testimony to the good judg- 
ment of the English workingmen, for they had believed in that 
side, while the upper classes had generally anticipated its failure. 
But the great reason for the wide acceptance of the general prin- 
ciple of a bill for further parliamentary reform was the passage of 
time since the last measure of this kind had been adopted. A 
new generation had grown up which was familiar with the deficien- 
cies of the existing system of representation and was not familiar 
with the extent to which it was an improvement on still older 
conditions. To this generation further reform seemed a natural 
and necessary step. 

594. The Reform Bill of 1867 The bill was introduced by 

\ Disraeli in 1867 as a very moderate measure. One amendment 
after another, however, was carried, introducing more liberal 
principles, till it was a far-reaching and thoroughgoing measure. 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 659 

The Conservatives were in a yielding frame of mind, Gladstone and 
the other Liberal leaders urged them to further concessions, and the 
constant agitation going on outside of parliament during the debates 
carried both parties farther than they quite realized. The bill was 
finally carried through both houses by quite large majorities. 

The bill of 1867 deprived eleven of the smaller towns of the 
representation which had been left to them in 1832. Thirty-five 
other towns having less than ten thousand population were each 
deprived of one of their representatives. These representatives 
were given to the great cities and thickly populated counties. 
The most important change was, however, in the right of voting. 
Household suffrage was introduced in the parliamentary towns. 
That is to say, after this year every man who was owner or tenant 
of any dwelling house and paid the usual taxes, or who occupied 
lodgings worth ^"io a year, had a right to vote. In the country 
districts every one who held either as owner or life tenant a piece 
of land worth ^5 a year or more, or who for a shorter term was 
a tenant of land worth £\2 a year, and had paid the usual taxes, 
could vote for county members. 

Thus in the towns almost every man would have a vote, for almost 
every man would either own or rent a house or occupy lodgings 
worth ;£io a year. In the rural districts all the farming as well 
as the landowning class would have votes. The only large body 
who were excluded were the farm laborers, who held no land and 
whose cottages were too poor to reach the voting limit or to be 
assessed for taxes. After this year probably two thirds of the men 
of England had a right to vote. Mechanics and factory laborers 
as well as the wealthy and professional classes, farmers and store- 
keepers as well as landowners and merchants, indeed all except 
the farm laborers and those who had no domicile, could vote for 
members of parliament. For the first time in English history 
parliament was under the control of the mass of the people. 

595. Reform Administration of Gladstone. — A number of re- 
forms of various kinds were introduced in the years immediately 



6oo 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



following the passage of the Reform Bill of 1867, as had occurred 
after the Reform Bill of 1832. The earliest and most important 
of these were carried out under the influence of Gladstone. The 
first election after the passage of the Reform Bill gave a majority 
to the Liberals. Disraeli therefore resigned and Gladstone entered 
upon a prime ministership which lasted from 1868 to 1874. 

The first task to which he set himself was the disestablishment, 
of the Irish church. At the Reformation the reformed church had 
been officially established in Ireland in the same form as in Eng- 
land. Ever since that time its sup- 
port had been forced upon the Irish 
people and it was looked upon as the 
state church, though the great mass 
of the Irish were Roman Catholics, 
except in the north, where they were 
mostly Presbyterians. After a long 
contest in parliament in 1869 the 
official character was taken from the 
Irish church and it became a purely 
voluntary religious body. 

In 1870 a land law was passed for 
Ireland giving to the Irish tenants 
security from eviction so long as they 
paid their rents, compensation for 
the improvements they had made upon the land during the time 
of their tenancy, and an advance of money to enable them to buy 
their farms from their landlords. In the same year the first im- 
portant act for the establishment of a national system of free ele- 
mentary schools was passed, and in 187 1, at the other extreme of 
the educational system, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
were thrown open to Roman Catholics and Dissenters by abolish- 
ing the religious tests which all students had formerly been required 
to sign. In the same year the use of the secret ballot in voting, 
instead of giving the vote by word of mouth, was introduced by 




Gladstone 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 



66 1 



an act of parliament, temporarily at first but afterwards- as a per- 
manent system. This was one of the old Chartist proposals and 
had been frequently advocated in parliament since their time, but 
until 187 1 had always been defeated either in the House of Com- 
mons or the House of Lords. In the same year an act legalizing 
trade unions was passed. 

In 1870 and 187 1 a reorganization of the army took place. 
The most interesting changes introduced were the abolition of the 
purchase system, by which officers had long been able to purchase 
promotion in the army, and the or- 
ganization of all the regiments on 
the basis of the counties from which 
they were recruited. Shortly after- 
wards a reform was introduced into 
the judicial system according to 
which the four old courts of law and 
equity — '.King's Bench, Common 
Pleas, Exchequer, and Chancery, 
whose organization dated back to the 
time of the Angevin kings — were 
united and became mere divisions of 
the " Supreme Court of Judicature." 
They were all established in one set 
of buildings in the heart of London, 
instead of sitting at Westminster in separate locations as before. 

596. The Imperial Policy. — By this time most of the various 
reforms for which there was pressure at that time had been either 
adopted or introduced and defeated. Disraeli with his sharp 
tongue described the ministers, as they sat on the front bench in 
the House of Commons, as " a row of extinct volcanoes." In 
1874 the majority turned against the Liberals, Gladstone resigned, 
and Disraeli became prime minister for the second time. He 
had always held high ideas of the proper position of England in 
foreign affairs and now proceeded to turn the attention of the 




Disraeli 



662 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

country in that direction and to carry to great lengths what is 
often called the "imperial" policy. 1 In 1875 he purchased in 
the name of the government a majority of the shares of the Suez 
Canal stock, thus bringing that great highroad under English con- 
trol and checking the ambitions of France, under whose auspices 
the canal had been begun. He tried to prevent the war of 1877 
between Russia and Turkey, even after a series of terrible atroci- 
ties committed by the Turks in Bulgaria had raised an outcry of 
horror over all Europe and America. After the close of that war, 
at the Congress of Berlin, Disraeli, who had just been made earl 
of Beaconsfield, stood in the way of Russian aggrandizement 
and secured for England the possession of the island of Cyprus. 
His policy was responsible for several of the petty wars already 
described, especially those in Afghanistan and South Africa. By 
1880 this policy had become for the time unpopular in Eng- 
land, the Conservatives were defeated, the Liberals came back to 
power, and Gladstone became prime minister for the second time. 
In 1 88 1 Lord Beaconsfield died, thus bringing to an end the 
curious rivalry by which he and Gladstone had alternately held 
the chancellorship of the Exchequer for twenty-five years and the 
prime ministership for thirteen. 

597. The Third Reform Bill. — Gladstone was still, however, 
hale and hearty, and in 1884 entered upon a contest for a third 
reform of parliament. This was brought into practical discussion 
as early as 1872 by a strike for better wages among the farm 
laborers. In England there are three distinct classes connected 
with the land, — the landlords who own the farms, the farmers 
who rent them, and the laborers who work upon them for wages. 
When trouble arose between the last class and the employing 
farmers it came to be generally recognized how numerous they 

1 This has also sometimes been called the " Jingo " policy, from a popu- 
lar song of the music halls of the time. 

We do not want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do, 

We 've got the ships, we 've got the men, we 've got the money too. 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 663 

were, how completely they were excluded from any share in the 
government, and how depressed was their condition. As a result 
an agitation sprang up to change the laws so that they also, 
like all other considerable classes in the country, should have 
the right to vote. Of this movement Gladstone made him- 
self the leader, and in 1884 he succeeded, against much opposi- 
tion, in carrying through parliament another reform bill which 
extended the franchise to the t .. 1 >- : ^ 

farm laborers and a number of . '• ■■•'.. 

'?-•', /;»n'i" '' !•' -' ; ♦ • ►■'»'<■ ►''"'' : ' lV i * : ' r '• ' 

other smaller classes which had 






Li 



II 



»U 



not before been included. The 
House of Lords at first rejected 
the bill, but after being threat- : 
ened, much as in 1832, they j 
gave way and passed it. 

At the same time the process 
of depriving the smaller towns 

of their separate representatives fegflyk IBI^SSWB Jfe":'^ 1 ^ 
in parliament was carried a long 'SM^^S5B^^fii;s „ a 
step farther, more than a hun- SS!!!l! l|l,ll ' IBiyi!1 ' lllll!lll! f V / 

dred becoming for purposes of 
representation simply parts of 
the counties in which they lay. 
As in previous reform bills these representatives were transferred 
to the counties and the larger cities. At the same time all the 
counties and most of the large towns were divided into electoral 
districts of almost equal numbers of inhabitants. Each of these 
sends one member to parliament. This portion of the bill was 
separated from the part which referred to the franchise and was 
passed with little opposition in the year 1885. Thus universal 
suffrage, equal electoral districts, and vote by ballot, three of the 
old points of the Charter, were almost completely attained. 

598. Reforms in Local Government. — In 1882 the " Municipal 
Corporations Act " was passed, giving the right to vote for city 



Throne in the House of Lords 






664 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

officers to all the inhabitants of the cities, whether property hold- 
ers or not. In 1888 "County Councils" and in 1894 "Parish 
Councils" were created by acts passed by parliament. These 
were representative bodies elected in each county and parish 
by universal suffrage, even women having a right to vote for 
them and to serve upon them. To these councils is given the 
charge of most matters connected with education, public health, 
the poor, and many other local interests, though their power is of 
course limited by the general laws passed by parliament on these 
matters. Thus many powers formerly exercised by appointed 
magistrates are now possessed by elected bodies, and government 
is brought close home to the mass of the people in England by 
allowing them to govern themselves in many everyday matters 
in their own localities. 

England's form of government is now an almost complete 
democracy. National and local affairs are under the control of 
the whole body of the people. The ministers carry on the 
government in accordance with the wishes of the majority in 
the House of Commons, and if they are outvoted on any impor- 
tant question they immediately resign and the sovereign calls the 
leader of the opposite party to the prime ministership. 1 As the 
House of Commons is elected by all the people, parliament can- 
not for any length of time act in opposition to the will of the 
people, any more than the ministry can act in opposition to the 
will of parliament. 

599. Irish Home Rule. — In 1886 Gladstone had his last great 
contest on a measure of reform, and he was defeated. For a 
number of years leading Irishmen had kept up an agitation for 

1 The plan by which the ministry is dependent upon the approval of its 
acts by the majority in parliament is called " responsible government." 
The resignation of office by the ministers when parliament refuses to pass 
the measures they recommend, adopts measures they oppose, or expresses 
its disapproval of their actions, has become so customary as to be practi- 
cally compulsory. 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 665 

what they called "home rule." By this they meant something 
like a return to the system in existence before 1800, when Ire- 
land had a separate parliament of her own for her internal affairs. 
The leadership in this movement fell into the hands of Charles 
Stewart Parnell, an Irish Protestant member of parliament who 
showed considerable ability and vigorous leadership. Finally eighty- 
six of the one hundred members from Ireland became advocates of 
home rule, and it was desired almost universally in that country. 

Many concessions had been made to Ireland in the latter half 
of the century in matters of landholding, religion, and education, 
but discontent was scarcely diminished and disorder was constant. 
Both Liberal and Conservative ministries repeatedly obtained 
from parliament extraordinary powers of keeping the peace, in 
the form of what were known as " coercion acts." These angered 
and alienated great numbers of the Irish people and the country 
was unhappy and unprosperous. Gladstone, though like other 
English political leaders he had long opposed the plans of the 
home-rule party, finally became convinced that it would be better 
to yield to their wishes and thus obtain peace and contentment 
than to keep up the opposition. In 1886, when he was prime 
minister for the third time, he introduced a bill to give Ireland a 
separate parliament for her own affairs, to sit at Dublin. But he 
could not carry his party with him. John Bright, Joseph Cham- 
berlain, and a large proportion of the Liberals seceded, formed 
a new party, the " Liberal Unionists," and joined with the Con- 
servatives to defeat the bill by a considerable majority. Par- 
liament was then dissolved and new elections were held to test 
the feeling of the country on the question. Since these resulted 
unfavorably to home rule, Gladstone resigned office. 

After the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, with Lord Salis- 
bury as prime minister, had retained control of parliament for a 
period of six years, Gladstone, in 1892, although eighty-three 
years old, became prime minister again, being the only English 
statesman who had ever held that office four times. He now 



666 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

carried by a small majority a modified home-rule bill through the 
House of Commons, but it was defeated in the House of Lords 
and the interest in it was so slight that the lower house did not 
pass it again. In 1894 Gladstone retired from parliament on 
account of ill health, and in 1898 died at the age of eighty- 
eight. Home rule was on his resignation dropped for the time 
by the leaders of the Liberal party. Later, however, county 
and district councils were created for Ireland by act of parlia- 
ment, sundry land bills in favor of the Irish tenants were passed, 
and much was done towards giving the Irish people local self- 
government and prosperity. Nevertheless the question of Ireland 
and her future remained unsettled and troublesome. 

600. British Colonies and Dependencies. — As the nineteenth 
century drew to its close, and as the twentieth century began its 
course, questions of the whole British Empire came into greater 
prominence even than internal questions or the relations be- 
tween England and Ireland. Some statesmen, especially Joseph 
Chamberlain, called frequent attention to these questions, and 
in the jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria, in 1887 and 1897, 
festivities through all parts of the empire and deputations com- 
ing to England from its farthest parts increased the recognition 
of its importance. 

It becomes necessary, therefore, to make a rapid survey of the 
colonies and dependencies of Great Britain, and to describe the 
main occurrences in their recent development and in their rela- 
tions to the mother country. Of the long list of British domin- 
ions in various parts of the world 1 many have been acquired 

1 The following is a list of the most important groups of British depend- 



. The total number e 


sctends to almost if 


not quite a hundre 


Australasia 


South Africa 


Newfoundland 


India 


Nigeria 


British Guiana 


Ceylon 


Gibraltar 


Jamaica 


Hong Kong 


Malta 


Barbadoes 


Straits Settlements 


Cyprus 


The Bahamas 


East Africa 


Canada 


The Bermudas 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 



667 



by conquest and have remained foreign communities under the 
British crown, being ruled primarily for the commercial or mili- 
tary advantage of Great Britain. Of this class of colonies India is 
the greatest example, as its history has shown, 1 though many of 
the smaller colonies, such as Hong Kong, Malta, and St. Helena, 
are still more characteristic examples. 

Other colonies, however, were originally settled by English 
emigrants, or have been so largely occupied by Englishmen since 
their acquisition that they have 
become new branches of the 
English race and nation. The 
most important colonies of this 
character are Canada, Austra- 
lia and New Zealand, and 
South Africa. 

601 . Ganada. — When Can- 
ada came into the possession 
of Great Britain by the Treaty 
of Paris in 1 7 6 3 it was occupied 
by a French population spread 
along the lower waters of the 
St. Lawrence, around Quebec 
and Montreal, and in a few 
scattered posts along the Great Lakes, besides some English settlers 
in Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and in Newfoundland. At the close of 
the American Revolution some thirty or forty thousand Loyalists 
emigrated from the United States and were added to the English- 
speaking population of Canada. Most of these either settled in 
Nova Scotia or pushed on beyond the French part of the province 
and settled farther up the St. Lawrence River and to the north 
of the Great Lakes. Colonists soon began to come directly from 
England and Scotland, going likewise for the most part to the 
western part of the province. Thus there grew up, in addition to 
1 See pp. 565-571 and 649-652. 




Queen Victoria 



668 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and New- 
foundland, two sections of Canada, one in the lower St. Lawrence 
occupied by the descendants of the French settlers, the other in 
the upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes occupied by English 
settlers. In 1791 these were organized by an act of parliament 
into two provinces known as "Upper" and "Lower" Canada, each 
of which was to have a council and assembly with quite limited 
powers. The governor and council were appointed by the British 
government, the assembly was elected by the people. 

In both of the provinces there was contention between the 
governor and the assembly, especially in Lower Canada, where 
the French population felt that they were being tyrannized over 
by the English governor and council. This discontent became 
so serious that in 1837 and 1838 small rebellions broke out in 
both sections. As a result of these difficulties an act of parlia- 
ment was passed in 1840 which united the two provinces and 
gave somewhat greater powers to the elected assembly. After 
this constitution was adopted the governor general of Canada, 
although still retaining the power due to his appointment by the 
crown, made a habit of appointing a ministry from the members 
of the party which had the majority in the assembly. This gave 
the people of Canada practical self-government, and the Cana- 
dian ministry soon came to govern the colony under the nominal 
control of the governor general, just as in England the ministry 
carries on the government under the king or queen. 

602. The Federal Dominion of Canada. — After self-government 
had been thus attained the one remaining point of serious dis- 
satisfaction was the discord between the French and the English 
races. Combined as they now were under one assembly and 
governor, the French Catholic inhabitants of Lower Canada felt 
that they were being interfered with in regard to their religion, 
laws, and customs. The English and Protestant inhabitants of 
Upper Canada, on the other hand, were continually increasing 
in numbers and were dissatisfied that the French minority still 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 669 

retained so much power in the government. Partly to remedy 
this state of affairs, partly to attain still higher ends, a series of 
conferences was held by representatives of the two sections of 
Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and it was determined 
to ask the home government to separate Upper and Lower Canada 
and then to combine all these states in a confederacy somewhat 
similar to the United States. This was finally agreed to by all the 
colonial legislatures, and a bill for the purpose was carried through 
the British parliament in 1867. Lower Canada took the name 
of Quebec, and Upper Canada that of Ontario, while the whole 
confederation, including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, became 
known as "The Dominion of Canada." 

Since 1867 there has been one federal government for gen- 
eral affairs, with its capital at Ottawa, with a governor general 
appointed by the home government, a federal ministry, and a par- 
liament of two houses, the Senate and the House of Commons, 
elected by the whole Canadian people. Each state of the confed- 
eration has a somewhat similar government for its own internal 
affairs, a lieutenant governor being appointed for each by the gov- 
ernor general, but having, like him and like the sovereign he 
represents, scarcely more than nominal powers. Practically the 
Canadians govern themselves in all respects except in their rela- 
tions with other nations. 

In 1869 the Canadian government bought out the rights of the 
Hudson Bay Company to the vast domains to the westward and 
northward, and these have been since gradually settled and divided 
up into eleven new states and territories. The Dominion of Canada 
now occupies a territory about equal to that of the United States 
and in 1 9 1 1 had a population of some seven and a quarter millions. 

603. Colonization of Australia and New Zealand Founded 

later than Canada but more purely English, the first population of 
Australia was constituted of rather unpromising material. It was 
a body of about seven hundred convicts and their guards sent by 
the government in 1788 to Botany Bay, on that part of the eastern 



670 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

coast which had been previously explored by Captain Cook and 
by him named New South Wales. In 1783 a law had been passed 
authorizing the ministers to form one or more penal settlements 
wherever they should think fit. At about the same time the col- 
onization of the fertile and unoccupied shores of eastern Australia 
was being strongly advocated for commercial reasons. The two 
objects were now combined and the penal colony was established 
at the same time that free settlers were urged to emigrate thither. 
From 1788 onward the government continued to send large bodies 
of convicts, while at the same time independent colonists estab- 
lished themselves there in some numbers. 

Every effort was made to encourage the settlement of a per- 
manent population. All who chose to emigrate to Australia were 
given liberal grants of land, officers and soldiers who had fulfilled 
their terms of enlistment were encouraged to remain, and the con- 
victs themselves, on the expiration of their sentences, which were 
usually for seven years, were given land and the opportunity to 
begin life anew among more favorable surroundings. Population 
thus gradually grew and spread and new settlements were formed. 
The original settlement was named Sydney and became a large 
city, the district of which it was the center retaining the name 
of New South Wales. The later settlements were in some cases 
offshoots of this, in others independent colonies established from 
England. Since Australia is about ten times the size of Great 
Britain and Ireland together, the vast distances necessarily made 
the more remote of these colonies practically independent of one 
another, and one after another they were organized as separate 
colonies. Tasmania, an island about two hundred miles in length 
and breadth, situated off the southern coast, was the first of these. 
Its settlement and organization were followed by the establish- 
ment of Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, and South Aus- 
tralia. New Zealand, the other great Australasian 1 island group, 

1 The term Australasia is properly used to include the colonies on the 
mainland of Australia, the island of Tasmania, and New Zealand. 



1 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY . 671 

which lies twelve hundred miles to the eastward of Australia, fol- 
lowed a somewhat similar course, its regular settlement being 
begun in 1833, although a wild population of shipwrecked sailors, 
escaped convicts, and other outlaws had occupied one spot on the 
coast for some years before, and the Maoris, the native race, were 
a numerous and vigorous people. 

The earliest and most permanent industry of the people of 
both Australia and New Zealand was naturally agriculture, but in 
1797 coal was discovered in Australia and extensively mined, and 
soon afterwards the inland districts were explored and proved to 
have vast plains suitable for sheep and cattle raising, so that 
Australia has become the greatest wool-producing country of the 
world. In 1 85 1 gold was discovered in New South Wales, and soon 
afterwards in Victoria, Queensland, and New Zealand. The gold 
fever now brought in suddenly a great wave of immigration from 
all parts of the world. This increase of numbers has continued in 
a greater or less degree, until in 191 1 the population of the seven 
Australasian colonies amounted to about five and a half millions. 
With this increased population manufacturing and more varied in- 
dustries have been introduced, so that these colonies now provide 
for all their needs as completely as any other civilized country. 

As the free population increased and the prosperity and self- 
respect of the colonists became more highly developed, the oppo- 
sition to the transportation of convicts to their shores became 
greater and greater, and the home government felt compelled to 
yield to their wishes. In 1840 transportation to New South 
Wales was given up, and in 1865 it was totally abolished as 
respected the whole island. 

604. Australasian Self-government and Confederation. — At 
first the Australian colonies were ruled almost absolutely by the 
governors appointed by the home government. In 1823, how- 
ever, a constitution was granted by act of parliament to the two 
colonies which then existed, New South Wales and Tasmania, 
giving them each a council, the members of which were, however, 



672 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

appointed by the governor. These rights were added to in later 
constitutional grants, a council elected by the colonists in New 
South Wales being authorized in 1842 and extended in 1850 to 
the other colonies then in existence. This was the beginning of 
self-government, and in 1855 the four colonies, with the permission 
of parliament, laid before the home government new constitutions 
drawn up by themselves and in accordance with their own wishes. 
They were approved and each of the Australasian colonies became 
a self-governing state with only the same general supervision exer- 
cised over it by the British government as has been described in 
the case of Canada. Universal suffrage and the ballot were early 
introduced, and in each colony the ministry is dependent on the 
majority in the colonial legislature. Thus an almost complete 
democracy, similar to that of the mother country and indeed in 
some respects in advance of it, has been introduced in these dis- 
tant colonies. Ever since the attainment of full self-government 
in 1855, there has been an effort to bring about a closer union 
among the seven Australasian colonies. Nothing was accom- 
plished till 1883, when a " Federal Council for Australasia" was 
formed, though with very limited powers. In 189 1 a convention 
met at Sydney and drew up a plan for a closer union much like 
that of Canada or the United States, with provision for a parlia- 
ment of two houses, for federal courts, and a governor general 
to be appointed by the crown. The separate colonial govern- 
ments were to remain as before except for those powers which 
they must turn over to the central government. After much dis- 
cussion this federal constitution was adopted by all the colonies 
in 1900, and with the approval of parliament the name " Common- 
wealth of Australia " was adopted for the new confederation. The 
circumstances of their origin brought it about that the central 
government in Canada is much stronger, in Australia much weaker, 
than the state governments. 

605. South Africa. — Just as Canada was a French colony cap- 
tured by England in 1763, so Cape Colony was originally a Dutch 




THE PARTITION OF 

AFRICA 

Showing? the Colonies, Dependencies, \ SwJkopmunVy^™ WI 

Protectorates, and Spheres of Influence of \ Waifisch Bayti^£j' 

the different European States until 1914. T "(Vo GrBrVT "afSip\ 

XEGEND \ 

British [=! FrenchC=3 GermanCZJ A 1 Peque7la I 

Portuguese (ZZJ ItahanCZl " | 

^Regions not under European control are uncolored 9 i i t i i i i . i 10 ? ° 

Finished Scale of Miles 



Kail ways 



Proposed . 



Longitude 20 West from 10 Greenwich 




Cape Town 

C. of Uuod Hof 




Delagoa Day 
fc0SE>8"L n/Lourenco Marduez 

°^hi.. ° 40 Longitude 50 East from 60 Greenwich 70 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 673 

settlement which came into the final possession of the British by 
conquest in 1806, during the wars against Napoleon. The colo- 
nists, who had mostly emigrated from Holland in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, were a hardy and independent race of 
farmers and stock raisers who were known as " Boers." 1 

They showed themselves quite unwilling to adopt the new lan- 
guage, customs, form of religion, and ideas which the English gov- 
ernors of the colony tried to introduce. They were also deeply 
aggrieved by the abolition of slavery, which occurred in South 
Africa, as in all the rest of the British dominions, in 1833. The 
result of this was that between 1836 and 1842 great numbers of 
the Boers " trekked," or emigrated, from Cape Colony northward 
into the wilderness. There they formed two separate states, — 
the Orange Free State, and still farther north the Transvaal, or 
country across the Vaal River. In 1852 and 1854 the independ- 
ence of these two states, at least in their internal affairs, was 
acknowledged by the British government. 

The native races of South Africa were numerous and warlike 
and both the English and the Dutch colonists had many conflicts 
with them. As population increased and new immigrants arrived 
from England, as the boundaries of the old colonies were extended 
and new and ambitious chieftains arose among the natives, these 
conflicts became more frequent. They led to several prolonged 
wars, to the annexation of new territory by the Biitish, and to 
the formation of several new colonies, the most important of 
which was Natal, regularly organized in 1856. In 1870 the great 
diamond fields at Kimberley, north of Cape Colony, were discov- 
ered and were soon taken possession of by England. 

In 1877 the British government, hoping to establish a barrier 
against the natives, attempted to form a confederation among all 
the South African colonies, Boer and British. When the inhab- 
itants of the Transvaal resisted this effort their country was by 
proclamation annexed to Cape Colony. In 1880, however, the 
1 The word Boer, pronounced boor, is the Dutch for "farmer," 



674 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Boers of that state revolted, declared their independence, and 
gained several victories over British troops. Negotiations soon 
took place and independence was granted to the Transvaal, except 
that the Boers agreed to recognize the suzerainty of Great Britain 
in their foreign affairs and in their relations with the native races. 
In 1884 there were some modifications of these arrangements but 
they do not seem to have been generally understood. 

606. The Boer War. — In 1886 gold was discovered in the 
territory of the Transvaal, or " South African Republic," as it 
had been called since 1884, and soon this became one of the 
greatest gold fields of the world, producing more than one fourth 
of the total annual supply of gold. As a result much English 
and other European population and capital poured into the 
Transvaal, and a whole nation of " Outlanders " grew up, having 
no share in the Boer government, although they paid by far the 
greater part of the taxes. 

During the same period the boundaries of the English posses- 
sions on the northwest were being pushed almost a thousand 
miles farther, mainly by the energy of Cecil Rhodes, a wealthy 
mine owner, a man of far-reaching ideas, and the prime minister 
of Cape Colony. The two semi-independent Boer republics were 
thus almost entirely surrounded by British territory and at least 
partly populated with British subjects. 'Disputes now became 
almost constant, until in October, 1899, the Transvaal, in alliance 
with the Orange Free State, declared war against Great Britain. 

The two Boer republics made but a small nation compared with 
Great Britain, but they were well fitted by character and training 
for warfare, their governments during the whole course of the dis- 
putes with England had been drawing from Europe immense sup- 
plies of the most improved cannons, rifles, and ammunition, and 
the nature of the country was favorable to defense against attack. 
The war, therefore, to the astonishment of the whole world, was 
begun by an almost unbroken series of victories for the Boers. 
All through the early winter of 1899 and 1900 they defeated the 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 675 

British in engagement after engagement. The English govern- 
ment sent all its available troops to South Africa, called out the 
reserves, accepted the services of volunteer militia regiments and 
of troops offered by the colonies, until it had two hundred and 
fifty thousand men in the field, more than in any previous war in 
which England had been engaged. The commander in chief of 
the British army, Lord Roberts, took command and gradually the 
Boers were overwhelmed. After a year of warfare serious resist- 
ance came to an end, the capitals and all the important points of 
the two countries were occupied by British troops, and the govern- 
ments of the two republics were dissolved. An embassy was sent 
by the Boers to the various governments of Europe and to the 
United States seeking intervention, but they received no encour- 
agement. Then ensued a year and a half more of guerilla war- 
fare, until in May, 1902, all hostilities were suspended and the 
remaining Boer troops agreed to give up further resistance. 

In the meantime the British government had annexed the two 
republics to the empire under the names of the " Transvaal Col- 
ony " and the " Orange River Colony." All the inhabitants were 
forced to acknowledge the sovereignty of the English king. At 
the same time the British government announced that the Dutch 
language would not be disturbed, that civil government would be 
substituted for military authority as soon as possible, and that rep- 
resentative institutions would be introduced, leading up in the 
future to the position of self-governing colonies of the British 
Empire. At the same time a large amount of money was loaned 
by the British government without interest to the Boers for the 
restocking of their farms. Self-government was restored to the 
two colonies in 1906. 

607. South African Federation. — Cape Colony, Natal, Trans- 
vaal, and Orange Free State have thus been granted the same 
degree of self-government that has been attained by Canada and 
Australia. Population has steadily increased until, including that 
of the recently annexed colonies, it approaches nine millions. 



676 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



^ 



It was repeatedly proposed that some such scheme of federation 
as existed in the two groups of colonies last described should be 
introduced. This was finally done in 1910, the four colonies 
being united under the name " The Union of South Africa," 
with four dependent territories, which are being settled by Eng- 
lish colonists. 

608. Imperial Federation. — During the war in South Africa, 
as has been mentioned, India, Canada, and the Australian colo- 
nies sent bodies of volunteer troops 
to help the forces of the mother 
country and of Cape Colony. 
These troops were very welcome 
and the action of the colonies send- 
ing them called forth great enthu- 
siasm. Yet the incident brings up 
one of the gravest problems in the 
life of the British race. How far 
is merely- voluntary action, based 
on patriotic sentiment, a strong 
enough bond to hold together a 
vast empire? Many parts of the 
British Empire, as has been seen, 
now govern themselves in almost 
entire independence ; they have been allowed by the mother 
country to introduce democratic institutions; they are rapidly 
approaching her in numbers, wealth, and- enterprise; and they 
have every capacity for existence as separate independent nations. 
Will they want to become such, and if so will Great Britain be 
willing to let them go?- 

Sentiment at the present time both at home and in the colo- 
nies is strongly in favor of holding the mother country and all 
these daughter lands together, but the bond which unites them has 
become a very slender one. How to make it stronger has become 
a matter of much interest and effort. " Imperial Federation," 




Edward VII 




100 Longitude 80 West 60 from 40Greenwich20 



^ogfc 




GREAT BRITAIN [ 



TERRITORIES OF 

"1 UNITED STAJUES 



GERMANY 



1000 2000 3000 400 

Scale oi Miles along the Equator 



Aucklati Us 



NTAR 
OCEA 



CTIC 

N 



20Longitude40 East 60 from 80 Greenw iclilOO 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 677 

that is to say, a plan to organize a closer, more permanent, and 
more equal union among the different parts of the British Empire, 
has been much discussed. With this view five successive con- 
ferences of prime ministers of the various colonies have been 
called by the British foreign secretary, although not much has 
been so far accomplished by them. 

The " diamond jubilee " of Queen Victoria, which occurred in 
1897, was celebrated with the greatest heartiness in all parts of 
the empire. To England itself came representatives of all the 
colonies and of all the races living under the British crown, and 
a new realization of the significance of the widespread empire 
came over British statesmen. Poets like Kipling, as well as min- 
isters like Chamberlain and colonial men of enterprise like Cecil 
Rhodes, have devoted themselves to the extension of the ideal of 
imperial unity. When Victoria's long and useful reign finally 
came to an end in 1901, and the prince of Wales succeeded to 
the throne as Edward VII, the same idea of the importance of 
the empire as a whole led to the adoption of a new form of the 
title of the sovereign. This was declared by a royal proclamation 
issued November 4, 1901, to be "Edward the Seventh, by the 
grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, and of all the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, 
Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India." 

609. Summary of the Period 1852-1904. — This half-century 
of English history saw more of war than either the interests, 
the wishes, or the moral feelings of the nation approved. The 
Crimean War of 1 853-1856, the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 and 
later wars in India, the three wars with China, and many others 
in New Zealand, Asia, and Africa, culminating in the terrible 
Boer War of 1899-1902, made up a list of hostilities which were 
felt as a humiliation rather than a glory by most thoughtful 
Englishmen. Into these wars England was drawn for the most 
part by occurrences connected with her widespread colonial domin- 
ion, and they are often spoken of as part of the "cost of empire." 



678 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The most marked internal change was the development of self- 
government by the people, both in England and in the colonies 
which have sprung from England. The years 1867 and 1884 
are important dates not only in this period but in all English 
history. As a result of the reform bills passed in those years and 
of the measures of local government which have been described, 
the people became self-governing ; and, notwithstanding the sur- 
vival of many royal and aristocratic forms, England became an 
almost complete democracy with nearly universal suffrage and 
full control of the government by the majority of the population. 

This popular form of government undertook many services 
directed to the improvement of the condition of the people, some 
of which have been described in this chapter, but many of 
which, such as fuller provision for the public health, laws for the 
well-being of the working classes, and others, will be treated 
more fully in the next chapter. The government has come more 
and more to act on the principle that its duties are not merely 
military and political, but that it must do what can be done to 
make the people happier and more comfortable. 

General Reading. — McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, Vols. II 
and III, although rather superficial, contains the most inclusive account 
of the general affairs of England during this period. Bright, History 
of England, Vols. IV and V, contains a detailed and impartial narrative oi 
events from 1837 to 1904. Among the many and important biographies of 
public men of this period may be mentioned Morley, Gladstone, 3 vols. ; 
Russell, Gladstone ; Froude, Earl of Beaconsfield ; Reid, Lord Johr 
Russell; McCarthy, Sir Robert Peel; Bulwer,. Palmerston; Lee, Quee 
Victoria. Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography, contains a number o± 
excellent short accounts of prominent men of the period. Several of the 
biographical works referred to at the conclusion of the previous chapter 
extend into this period. Malleson, The Indian Mutiny, and De Wet, The 
Three Years* War, describe the Sepoy Rebellion and the Boer War respec- 
tively. Rose, Rise and Growth of Democracy in Great Britain, is good. 
Among works concerning the colonies some of the best are Dilke, Prob- 
lems of Greater Britain ; Seeley, The Expansion of Britain ; Jenks, The 
Australasian Colonies; BOURINOT, Canada; and Johnston, The Col- 
onization of Africa. 



THE GROWTH OF DEMOCRACY 679 

Contemporary Sources. — Almost all recent writings, whether govern- 
ment documents, speeches, biographies, statistics, newspapers, or even 
novels and poetry, are in a certain sense the sources for the history of the 
period of this chapter, since they are the only materials for our knowledge 
of it and they are practically contemporary with the events they describe. 
Material under this section is therefore hardly to be distinguished from 
that included under General Reading and Poetry and Fiction. A num- 
ber of documents concerning Australia and the Transvaal are given in 
Lee, Source-Book, Nos. 225-235; relating to Irish home rule, the third 
reform bill, the Sepoy Rebellion, the American War, and the empire, in 
Kendall, Source-Book, Nos. 132, 133, 138, 140-151. Cheyney, Readings, 
Nos. 435-457- 

Poetry and Fiction. — Kipling, Jungle Book, Kim, Corporals Three, and 
The Days Work, give a realistic impression of British and native India 
as it is at the present time, and his Seven Seas and Five Nations reflect 
much of the prevailing imperialistic sentiment. Mrs. Steele, On the Face 
of the Waters, is a story of the Sepoy Rebellion. Besant, Children of 
Gideon, is a story of labor conditions in London. 

Special Topics. — (1) Exploration of the World by Englishmen, 
Traill, Social England, Vol. VI, pp. 656-681; (2) Literature at the 
Close of the Century, ibid., pp. 510-520; (3) The English Military and 
Naval System, ibid., pp. 482-509; (4) Transatlantic Navigation, ibid., 
pp. 392-404 ; (5) The Sepoy Rebellion, McCarthy, History of Our Own 
Times, Vol. II, chaps, xxxii-xxxv ; (6) The " Alabama," ibid., chaps, xliv 
md lx ; (7) Fenianism, ibid., chap, liii ; (8) The Home-Rule Bill, ibid., 
/ol. Ill, chap, x; (9) English Opinion on the Trent Affair, Kendall, 
•ource-Book, No. 145; (10) English Opinion on Lincoln, ibid., No. 146. 



CHAPTER XXI 
SOCIAL CHANGES AND THE GREAT WAR 

6 io. Combined Conservative and Liberal Unionist Parties. — 
Except for one short interval, the party made up of a combination 
of the old Conservatives with the Liberal Unionists had a majority 
in parliament for the twenty years following the defeat of the Lib- 
eral party in 1886. Lord Salisbury was prime minister during the 
early part of this period, Arthur Balfour during its later part. This 
was the period of land and local government reform in Ireland, the 
Boer war, the early stages of imperial federation, the golden and 
diamond jubilees of Queen Victoria, and the accession of Edward VII, 
which have been described in the last chapter. By 1905, however, 
the party in power was becoming less popular. This was due in 
large measure to its unwillingness to pass satisfactory measures of 
social reform which had come to be desired by a great body of the 
people and were constantly advocated by its political opponents. 
The decreasing popularity of the party was due also in part to its 
unalterable opposition to home rule, which was still demanded by 
the great majority of the people of Ireland, and w T hich a consider- 
able number of Englishmen were now willing, to grant. 

611. The Liberal Party and its Allies. — There were three 
parties in existence which held more popular views on social ques- 
tions and on Irish home rule than the party in power — the Liberals, 
the Labor party, and the Irish Nationalists. The old Liberal party 
of Mr. Gladstone's time had been much influenced by the growing 
up of younger men more interested in improving the position of 
the great mass of the people and more willing to seek this end 
through laws passed by parliament. A Parliamentary Labor party 

680 



SOCIAL CHANCKS 68 1 

had been founded some years before to obtain representation in 
parliament, not merely for the strongly organized trade unions 
which had already succeeded in electing some of their members to 
parliament, but for the rank and file of the laboring classes. With 
this end in view, it had adopted a socialist policy and combined 
with the Social Democratic Federation and other similar bodies. 
The Nationalists were, of course, pledged in the first place to home 
rule for Ireland, but they were quite ready to help in adopting 
measures for social reform and for the advantage of workingmen 
in return for the passage of a home rule bill. These three parties, 
therefore, agreed to act together at the next elections and in 
parliament. 

When a ministry in England feels that it is losing its hold on its 
party or on the people, it either advises the king to dissolve parlia- 
ment and order a new election to test the wishes of the whole nation, 
or else it resigns and advises the king to appoint a ministry from 
their opponents, believing that the new ministry will soon be forced 
by opposition in parliament to advise a dissolution. In either case, 
the old ministry hopes that as a result of the election they will them- 
selves be recalled to office. The king always accepts the advice of 
the ministry and does what it asks. Thus from time to time the 
people have an opportunity to express their wishes and decide 
which party and what ministry shall carry on the government. 1 

The Conservative-Liberal Unionist ministry, finding its difficul- 
ties greater and greater, resigned in December, 1905, and a Liberal 
ministry was formed. They dissolved parliament and held new 
elections in January, 1906. The result was an overwhelming victory 
for the group of progressive parties, 378 Liberals, 83 Nationalists, 
and 53 Labor members being elected. This gave 514 supporters 
to the ministry, with only 156 opponents. This ministry, at first 
under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as prime minister and later 
under Mr. Asquith, remained in office for more than ten years, until 
the close of the year 19 16, although its supporters were diminished 
1 See page 664. 



682 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



in numbers by the results of two later elections. Its most prom- 
inent members, in addition to the prime minister, were David 
Lloyd George, during most of the time chancellor of the Exchequer, 
Sir Edward Grey, foreign secretary, Winston Churchill, Herbert 
J. Gladstone, son of the great prime minister, James Bryce, later 
ambassador to the United States, John Burns, a Labor member, 
John Morley, and Sydney Buxton. 

612. Workmen's Compensation. — The first important measure 
to be taken up and passed by the new parliament was one to which 

there was little or no opposition 
on party grounds and on which 
the differences of opinion were 
merely on questions of detail. This 
was an act by which the principles 
of the employers' liability act of 
1880 and the workmen's compen- 
sation act of 1897 were carried 
further. Before the passage of the 
first of those acts each workman 
injured in the course of his em- 
ployment, if he wished to seek 
damages, had to sue separately, 
and there were so many legal ob- 
stacles in the way that he could 
seldom obtain a favorable verdict. 
The principle introduced by those 
laws was that the loss of time, health, limbs and life resulting from 
the vast number of accidents continually occurring in the ordinary 
business of the country- should be paid in the first place by those 
in charge of this business ; that is, by employers. Ordinarily em- 
ployers will take out insurance to cover such payments, and the 
expense of this insurance will become part of the general cost of 
production and be paid in the long run by the community in the 
form of higher prices for goods. 




David Lloyd George, Chancellor 
of the Exchequer 



SOCIAL CHANGES 683 

The law passed in 1906 introduced no new principle, but was 
much more liberal and inclusive. It provided that any workman 
injured in the course of his work, or suffering from certain diseases 
as a result of his work, should receive from his employer as long 
as the results of the injury or the disease continued an amount 
equal to about half his previous earnings. In the case of an accident 
causing death, an amount equal to three years' wages must be paid 
to his widow or other dependents. This law doubled the number 
of persons subject to the provisions of the earlier acts, so that 
more than seven million working men and women are now under 
its protection. 

613. Legislation in Favor of Trade Unions. — After the legali- 
zation of trade unions in 187 1 they grew in numbers and- strength 
until, by 1906, there were more than a thousand organized unions, 
with more than two million members. They had come to be recog- 
nized by most people as permanent and useful organizations, and 
they exercised much influence in the community. The prevailing 
opinion was expressed by Sydney Buxton, president of the Board 
of Trade, in a debate in the House of Commons in which he said, 
" I believe it is the opinion of the House now that it is not only in 
the interest of labor itself but in the interest of employers as well 
that these trade unions should be strong, representative, and inde- 
pendent." They had large sums of money in their treasuries, ac- 
cumulated by dues from their members, some intended for sickness 
and death benefits, some for help to their members in time of un- 
employment, some for general expenses during strikes and for 
other purposes. 

A decision of the courts in 1901, known as the Taff Vale deci- 
sion because it was given in a suit between the Taff Vale Railway 
and a miners' union, showed that these funds were in considerable 
danger of being lost by the unions. The court decided that if men 
who could be considered as representing a union caused loss to 
another person by any illegal action the person suffering the loss 
could sue the union and obtain compensation from its general funds. 



684 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

" Illegal " as used in this decision is a broad word. Many actions 
of workingmen in their disputes with employers were probably 
illegal, although since the laws of 187 1 and 1875 they were no 
longer criminal. Though the men could not be punished for them 
they might possibly still be sued for damages. Such were " picket- 
ing," that is personal persuasion of other workmen to join in a 
strike, and " boycotting," that is appealing to people generally not 
to deal with employers against whom a strike is being carried on. 
If the unions as organizations, as well as their members sepa- 
rately, could be sued in such cases, any strike in which picketing 
or boycotting occurred was likely to cause a union to lose its 
funds through damage suits. 

Both parties agreed that there should be some change in the 
law in this respect, and the Conservatives in 1905 tried to pass an 
act on the subject but could not agree among themselves on its 
terms. A measure was now introduced by the ministry, amended 
through the influence of the Labor party members, and, notwith- 
standing much opposition, carried by a large majority. It was 
known as the Trade Disputes Act of 1906. It legalized picketing 
and boycotting during strikes so long as these actions were peaceful. 
It prohibited suits in the courts against trade unions for damages 
caused by the action of members of the trade union. Trade unions 
as organized bodies were thus given the same protection against 
civil suits that their members already had against criminal suits. 

614. Old Age Pensions. — The support of old people had long 
been a difficulty for which no satisfactory solution had been found. 
Wages were so low that it could not be expected that laborers 
should save enough for old age, or that younger people could 
support their parents when they became too old to work. It was 
calculated in 1886 that average wages were only about $6 a 
week, and many were receiving very far below that sum. The 
provisions of the poor laws for old people were unsatisfactory. 
Conservatives and Liberals had both sought a more satisfactory 
plan, and various measures had been introduced into parliament 



SOCIAL CHANGES 685 

but failed because of a lack of agreement of parties or of apparent 
means to carry out the proposed projects. Finally, in 1908, an 
Old Age Pension Act was passed. It provides that every man or 
woman who has reached the age of seventy years and whose means 
of support do not amount to more than ^"31 10s. (about $155) a 
year shall receive a pension from the national government. This 
pension varies in amount from one to five shillings a week accord- 
ing to the income which the person receiving the pension has from 
other sources. Claims for a pension can be made, and the pension 
is paid, through the nearest post office. Within five years of the 
passage of the act almost a million old men and women were 
receiving government pensions, nearly all of them the maximum 
airiount, that is to say five shillings a week. 

The debate on the pension bill brought up discussion of many 
similar questions. The Labor members claimed that aged working 
people ought to be looked on as " veterans of industry," whose 
labor had been the chief factor in the winning of England's wealth, 
and who could therefore claim support in their old age as a right 
not merely as a charity. If this were so, their pensions should be 
much larger, but for this the majority in parliament was not ready. 
Mr. Asquith, however, who had just become prime minister, said 
concerning the act, " beyond this there lies the whole still uncon- 
quered territory of social reform." Soon afterward, in 1909, a 
commission on the poor laws which had been making investiga- 
tions and taking testimony for the preceding three years made its 
report. It recommended a large number of changes in the law, 
and the minority of the committee made a separate report, urging 
still more extensive reforms. This " Minority Report " has become 
a sort of program of projects for social betterment. 

615. Help in Obtaining Employment. — One of the first of the 
more moderate reforms to be carried through was the adoption of 
a plan for aiding workmen to get employment. It is a sad fact 
that a vast number of workmen, ready and willing to work, are 
thrown out of employment from time to time, in the ups and 



6S6 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



downs of modern industry, from causes entirely beyond their own 
control, and notwithstanding all their efforts are often unable to 
get work for weeks and months. Their savings are exhausted, 
they necessarily run into debt, regularity of habits is destroyed and 
hope lost. An Unemployed Workmen Act was passed in 1905, but 
did not solve the problem. By the law which was passed in the 
fall of 1909 the ministry was authorized to establish a system of 
"labor exchanges." These were offices intended to bring together 
workmen needing positions and employers needing workmen, 




A Government Labor Exchange 



to aid workmen to reach places where their services were in de- 
mand, to give information about opportunities for work, and for 
other similar purposes. The government made immediate use of 
this authorization and of the appropriation granted at the same 
time. Within six months some eighty of these government intelli- 
gence offices were opened in various cities, and by the end of two 
years there were about eighteen hundred with their branches in 
large and small towns. They are carefully organized. The whole 
country is divided into ten districts for their administration, each 
with a central office, and there is a main central office in London. 
Their officials are assisted by voluntary local committees, and they 
work as far as possible in connection with trade unions and similar 



SOCIAL CHANGES 687 

bodies. Much attention is given to placing such children and young 
persons as come under their charge in positions where they will 
obtain industrial training. In 19 12 there were about a million and 
a half applications for positions by working people, a million offers 
of positions by employers, and half a million vacancies filled. 

616. Trade Boards for Settling a Minimum Wage. — It has long 
been a matter of observation that there are certain occupations in 
which wages are deplorably low, hours of labor excessive, and gen- 
eral working conditions very bad. These are the so-called " sweated " 
industries — occupations in which no trade union exists, usually car- 
ried on on a small scale by subcontractors, in which the employees 
are largely foreigners or women, and where the usual standards of 
living are not conformed to. 

As a means of partially overcoming these evils, a measure was 
passed by parliament in 1909 providing for the appointment of 
what are called Trade Boards. These boards consist of members 
representing the employers, the workmen, and the government, and 
they have the power of settling minimum rates of wages in the 
particular locality and trade each board represents. This rate of 
wages for a while is voluntary only, but after it has been estab- 
lished for a certain length of time it becomes compulsory, and any 
employer who pays less is subject to a fine and must make up 
to the employee the deficiency in his wages. In the act these 
boards were authorized only for the ready-made clothing trades, 
paper-box making, lace making by machinery, and chain making, 
but the ministry was empowered to add other industries to these 
from time to time as need was shown. Trade Boards have since 
been established in several other branches of hand labor. 

617. Wage Boards for Coal Mines. — The law just described 
almost amounted to government regulation of wages, and was a 
partial return to the old statutes of laborers and act of appren- 
tices, except that their object was in the main to keep wages down 
while the object of this law is to keep wages up. 1 This principle, 

1 See pp. 244, 338. 



688 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

having been introduced in the "sweated" industries, was almost 
sure to be extended to others. This occurred three years after- 
ward. In 19 1 2 there was a great strike of coal miners, who de- 
manded from the employing mine owners the establishment of a 
minimum rate of wages as a matter of union agreement. After 
this strike had lasted some weeks and caused much loss and suf- 
fering, the ministry introduced into parliament and carried, against 
much opposition, a bill declaring that a rate of wages should be 
established under the authority of the government below which no 
one could be legally employed in coal mines. The Labor party 
members tried hard to have the rate named in the bill, but this 
was defeated. Instead of this, a board was established in each 
coal district, consisting of appointees of the owners, the miners, and 
the government, to settle a rate as the lowest which could legally 
be paid in that district. These boards within the next few weeks 
established legal minimum rates in the different coal regions of 
England, Scotland, and Wales. 

618. National Insurance. — Just as government regulation of 
wages was extending, so was the principle of old-age pensions. 
The next step was taken in 19 1 1. After several years of discussion 
and a year's active debate in parliament the National Insurance 
Act was passed. Earlier measures gave relief in old age, compen- 
sation for losses from accident during work, and help in finding 
employment. The National Insurance Act went on to provide 
for support during illness, free medical attendance, treatment of 
consumptives in sanitariums, and care of women at childbirth. 
Allowances were also made in some trades for support during unem- 
ployment. Instead of imposing the whole cost upon the govern- 
ment, as in the case of old-age pensions, these benefits were to be 
paid from a fund made up by requiring the contribution of a certain 
amount each week by the workman, a certain amount by the em- 
ployer, and a certain amount by the government. These payments 
were compulsory for all members of the working classes and their 
employers. They were made by the purchase of stamps at the 



SOCIAL CHANGES 689 

post-office, which were placed each week on a card. The money re- 
ceived by the government for the sale of the stamps was retained, 
and, along with the government's contribution, made up the insurance 
fund. Within a year after the passage of the act fourteen million 
persons were being insured by this means against sickness and two 
and a half million were being insured against unemployment. 

619. General Legislation. — In 191 2 there was a further exten- 
sion of the old factory acts. A law was passed which required 
all retail stores, — called in England shops, — all restaurants, and 
similar establishments, to close one half day in each week besides 
Sunday. It also limited the hours of employment in such estab- 
lishments to sixty hours a week, and made various other provisions 
about time of closing, comfort of employees, and such matters. 

A number of other measures of this general character were 
either carried through parliament or introduced for discussion. 
Many of these were connected with education — the provision of 
free meals and free medical attendance at school for poor children, 
reformatory treatment of youthful ill-doers, vocational training, and 
a reorganization of the university system. Others were connected 
with the overcrowding and unhealthy building up of towns, govern- 
ment encouragement of the improvement of land, and an effort to 
break up the aristocratic monopoly of the ownership of land. With 
the exception of this last project, which has deeply exasperated 
the Conservatives, it is a notable fact that there has been very 
general agreement of both parties on measures of social reform. 
Differences of opinion have been for the most part merely on the 
details of the measures. Even if the party in power had been 
defeated and a new ministry had come into office, most of the 
same measures would have been carried, although no doubt in a 
different form. A prominent member of the Conservative party 
said in the debate on the National Insurance Bill, " I will say that, 
believing as we do that you are animated by the sole desire to 
confer a lasting benefit upon all classes of the community, so we 
will aid you in the perfecting of the details of the scheme." A Labor 



690 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

member, in the same debate, declared that the Insurance Bill " marks 
a fundamental change in public opinion. . . . The old assumption . . . 
by which state aid and state organizations were regarded as some- 
thing which ought to be suspected by every wise man has been 
thrown over ... by everybody." 

Another characteristic of this group of laws was the growing 
opinion during these years before the outbreak of the great war 
that such legislation was the most important part of the work of 
government. Mr. Asquith, the prime minister, declared, " There is 
nothing that calls so loudly or so imperiously as the possibilities of 
social reform. . . . Political machinery is only valuable and is only 
worth having as it is adapted to and used for worthy social ends." 

620. The New Taxes. — Social reforms, however, could not be 
carried through without raising other questions. One was the 
question of taxation. Many of these new laws, especially the Old 
Age Pension Act, required the expenditure of a great deal of money 
by the government. At the same time more was being spent for 
education, public buildings, and like purposes, and the army and 
navy, especially the latter, were constantly becoming more expensive. 
In 1909 the government had to face an expenditure of $80,000,000 
more than its yearly income. In forming his budget, or statement 
of probable expenses and the taxes proposed to meet them, for 
that year, David Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer, and 
one of the most vigorous and influential of the ministers, adopted 
quite a new plan. 

Instead of raising the old taxes much higher, he proposed a new 
series of taxes which he considered would both increase the revenu 
and make the wealthy and landholding classes pay a more just pr 
portion than before. The budget therefore became itself a plan f( 
further social reform. In presenting it, Mr. Lloyd George declare 
the necessity and the rightfulness of improving the condition of tf. 
working classes. He pointed out also the desirability of carrying 
out government schemes of planting forests and otherwise impro 
ing barren lands, and of education and experiment on industrial 



SOCIAL CHANGES 69I 

and agricultural lines. He claimed that it was only fair that the 
wealthy classes of the country should pay a larger share of these 
national expenses than they had in the past. Finally he said, 
" This is a war budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable 
warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and 
believing that before this generation has passed away we shall have 
advanced a great step toward that good time when poverty and 
wretchedness and human degradation which always follow in its 
camp will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves 
which once infested its forests." 

The taxes which were either new, or so much increased as to be 
practically new, were as follows : a tax of 20 per cent was placed 
on all increase in the value of land due to its nearness to towns or 
other general improvement of the neighborhood, not to any im- 
provements placed on the land by the owner, — what is commonly 
called " the unearned increment." That is to say, whenever by sale, 
the death of the owner, or a periodical valuation it should be learned 
that land had increased in value, one fifth of this increase should 
be paid to the government as a tax. A small tax was laid on lands 
lying unused, a larger tax on the income from mining lands. Duties 
paid on estates of persons dying were to vary in amount from 1 per 
cent on estates of $500 to 15 per cent on estates -of $5,000,000 
and above. The ordinary income tax was increased, and a supertax, 
or additional tax, was placed on all incomes above $25,000 a year. 
Finally, there was a large increase in the taxes on liquor, liquor 
licenses, and tobacco. 

These taxes were very unwelcome to many business men, to 
' nanciers, to liquor dealers, to wealthy people generally, and above 
ill to owners of large landed property. These classes, especially the 
ikst, had long been the most influential classes in England, and 
strong opposition to the new taxes was therefore to be expected. 
Nevertheless the budget passed the House of Commons. In the 
House of Lords, however, there was a long conflict resulting in its 
defeat by a large majority. 



692 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

621. Antagonism to the House of Lords. — The control of the 
House of Commons over taxation had been complete for centuries. 
Resolutions were therefore passed by that House declaring that the 
House of Lords had acted unconstitutionally in defeating the budget. 
On the other hand, the leaders of the House of Lords claimed that 
they were only exercising their right to force the ministry to have 
a new election before introducing great changes which had not 
been proposed when parliament was elected. The ministry ordered 
the temporary collection of the new taxes, just as if the House of 
Lords had not defeated the bill, and announced that parliament 
would be immediately dissolved and a new election held. If the 
same party was in a majority in the new parliament, the same 
budget would be reintroduced. The ministry also made the impor- 
tant announcement that they would soon introduce into parliament 
a bill making it impossible in the future for the House of Lords 
to oppose itself successfully to the deliberate will of the House of 
Commons. 

622. Opposition between the Two Houses. — This brought up 
another question, and a very serious one. There had been many 
conflicts between the two houses, especially when there was a 
Liberal majority in the House of Commons. The House of 
Lords, being made up of hereditary noblemen, bishops, and prom- 
inent men raised to the peerage comparatively late in life, natu- 
rally looked at questions from a conservative point of view, and 
were much influenced by considerations of large property and 
high social position. They had therefore opposed and frequently 
defeated measures of reform passed by large majorities in the 
House of Commons. It was claimed by many Liberals that what- 
ever change of majority occurred in the House of Commons, 
there was always a Conservative majority in the House of Lords. 
The powers of that House seemed to them a permanent ob- 
stacle to the passage of acts for the good of the mass of the 
people, and real progress seemed impossible until this barrier had 
been removed. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 693 

Moreover, the House of Commons being elected and the House 
of Lords being made up for the most part of those who inherited 
their position, it seemed intolerable that the will of the people should 
be opposed by those who did not represent the people. This diffi- 
culty had come up frequently before, but in serious cases the House 
of Lords had usually given way, and the question had never 
been brought to a settlement. In 1907 the House of Commons 
had adopted a statement of principle, " that in order to give effect 
to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representa- 
tives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or 
reject bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law 
as to secure that within the limits of a single parliament the final 
decision of the Commons shall prevail." Nothing was then done 
to enforce this principle. The defeat of the budget, however, now 
brought it up in a definite form. 

623. The Parliament Act. — The new elections were held in 
January, 19 10. The Liberals again obtained a majority: not so 
large as in the last parliament, yet still, with the Irish National- 
ists and the Labor party, they had a solid majority of more than 
a hundred. The budget was therefore brought in again, and this 
time it was passed by both houses, though grudgingly by the 
House of Lords. 

Then the larger question came up. The ministry introduced 
into the -House of Commons a bill which, if passed into law, would 
give that House complete supremacy over the House of Lords. It 
was debated in parliament and discussed in a series of conferences 
between the leaders of the two parties during the whole year, but 
no compromise satisfactory to the two Houses could be agreed 
upon. Parliament was therefore dissolved in December, 19 10, 
and new elections were held virtually on this one question. The 
majority was practically the same as before, and the ministers 
promptly reintroduced the same bill into the House of Commons. 
It was carried there without great difficulty. It had however to 
meet its greatest opposition afterwards in the House of Lords. 



694 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

That body would be deprived of most of its powers if this law 
passed, and could not therefore be expected to agree to the 
proposed change without a struggle, even though a popular vote 
seemed to have declared in favor of the new law. The contest was 
a hard one, and, although the bill was not directly defeated by the 
House of Lords, amendments were adopted which would have 
changed the nature of the bill completely and defeated the objects 
which the majority of the House of Commons had in view. 

There was, however, one method by which the House of Com- 
mons could still have its way. Three times before in the past two 
centuries the king had, on the advice of the ministers, either made 
enough new peers to change the majority in the upper house, or 
agreed to do so if it was necessary. 1 The ministers now once 
more secured the promise of the king to do the same thing if the 
opposition in the House of Lords should continue. There was a 
sharp conflict among the peers as to what action they should take, 
but they finally gave way, and, under the threat of having their num- 
bers increased by a large number of new appointees favorable to the 
ministry, dropped their amendments and passed the bill as it was 
sent to them from the House of Commons. It is known as the 
Parliament Act of 1 9 1 1 . According to this law the budget, or any 
other money bill passed by the House of Commons, after it has 
been before the House of Lords for a month is to be signed by 
the king and become law whether the House of Lords approves 
it or not. Any other bill which has been passed three times by the 
House of Commons in three separate annual sessions and pre- 
sented to the House of Lords each time is to be signed by the king 
and become a law, even if the House of Lords has disapproved it 
each time. 

In the same act the longest time for which parliament can sit 

without holding a new election was reduced from seven years to 

five years. It was an old plan of the radical political reformers to 

shorten the term of parliament in order to give the people more 

1 See pp. 541, 626, 663. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 695 

frequent opportunity to express their will. The Chartist proposal 
had been to have a new parliament elected each year. 1 This was an 
approach to that term, especially as parliament is often dissolved 
and reelected for one reason or another before the expiration of its 
full possible term. 

624. Payment of Members of Parliament. — In the same session 
another old proposal of the reformers was adopted. This was the 
payment of salaries to members of the House of Commons. It was 
an honor and distinction to be a member of parliament, and men of 
the well-to-do classes had therefore for two or three centuries been 
willing and anxious to serve without pay. The result was that the 
practice of paying them for their services had gone entirely out of 
use, and the House of Commons was consequently, for the most 
part, made up of men of means. Many believed, however, that the 
people would be better served if it were possible for men without 
wealth or independent fortunes to be their representatives in parlia- 
ment. A number of the members of the Nationalist and Labor 
parties were supported by the funds of organizations interested in 
their membership; but in 1909 the courts decided, in what was 
known as- the Osborne judgment, that trade unions could not use 
their general funds for this purpose. To meet this difficulty and 
carry out the idea of the reformers, the measure referred to above 
was passed. It provided for the payment to each member of the 
House of Commons of a salary of about $2000 a year. 

625. Further Reform of the Franchise. — Notwithstanding the 
changes in voting introduced by the earlier reform bills, there were 
still numerous irregularities. There were restrictions on some men, 
special privileges possessed by others. Some men could deposit 
several votes for members of parliament, due to their possession 
or occupation of property located in different districts, or to being 
a graduate of one of the universities. In 1906 the House of Com- 
mons passed a bill against " plural voting," but it was defeated in 
the House of Lords. Now that the House of Lords could not any 

1 See pp. 603, 636. 



696 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

longer permanently resist such measures, the ministry, after intro- 
ducing, but later withdrawing, a more general franchise act, in 19 13 
reintroduced the bill of 1906 restricting each man to one vote. 
This was carried in the House of Commons, immediately rejected 
in the House of Lords, carried again in the Commons in June, 19 14, 
and defeated in the House of Lords in July. It was placed, in 
a somewhat changed form, upon what would have been its third 
passage by the House of Commons, but the Speaker declared the 
changes made it a new bill, and it was not pushed. 

626. Women's Suffrage. — The Parliament Act and the Pay- 
ment of Members Act, adopted in 191 1, made up a sort of fourth 
reform bill, carrying on the work of the acts of 1832, 1867, and 
1 884-1 885. The act against plural voting would have borne the 
government of England much further toward complete democracy. 
Another step in the same direction was now being advocated with 
increasing zeal. This was the proposal to extend to women the 
right of voting for members of parliament. Even though every 
man were given the franchise, only one half the people of England 
would have the right to vote ; women were still excluded. 

This was an old subject of interest, going back at least to the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. As a matter of practical pro- 
posal it dates from the time of the second reform bill, 1867. When 
that bill was under discussion John Stuart Mill, one of the clearest 
thinkers and most influential writers on political and economic ques- 
tions in the nineteenth century, introduced a resolution to change 
the word " man " in the bill to " person," so as to include women. 
He had already declared, on his election in 1865, that he believed 
women should be represented in parliament, and in 1866 had intro- 
duced a petition for the suffrage signed by fifteen hundred women. 
His proposed amendment was defeated, but it received seventy- 
three votes, and from that time onward the matter was frequently 
brought up in parliament. Thirteen successive bills were intro- 
duced, and it was brought up for serious debate some twenty 
times in the next half century. It frequently received large votes, 



SOCIAL CHANGES 69; 

even a majority at some stages of its progress, but always ultimate))' 
failed of adoption. When the Reform Bill of 1884 was under 
debate Mr. Gladstone, although himself apparently not opposed 
to women's suffrage, would not risk the bill by adding that subject 
to it, and proposed amendments for the purpose were opposed by 
him and defeated by large majorities. 

Back of the effort to carry bills for women's suffrage through 
parliament was the agitation for it throughout the country. The 
first women's suffrage society is said to have been founded at 
Sheffield in 1857. After that time they were rapidly formed in 
various cities. In addition to these a Women's Freedom League, 
Men's League for Women's Suffrage, Church League, Artists' 
League, Cambridge University Men's League, and a score or more 
of similar bodies were formed for the promotion of the cause. The 
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies was early formed to 
unite these and later claimed some four hundred branches and more 
than sixty thousand members. These societies worked for their 
object by arguments, speeches, meetings, the issue of newspapers 
and pamphlets, by appealing to candidates at elections to declare 
themselves on the question, by throwing their influence on the 
side of candidates favorable to the cause, by sending petitions to 
parliament, and by inducing other organizations and local govern- 
ments to do the same. As a result of this agitation, the subject 
became a familiar one, many men and women of prominence 
expressed their approval of it, and a large proportion of the mem- 
bers elected to each successive House of Commons were more or 
less favorable to it. 

627. Militancy. — In 1903 a new organization, The Women's 
Social and Political Union, was formed with the object of intro- 
ducing a more vigorous policy into the agitation for women's 
suffrage. In 1905 they took means to bring the whole question into 
greater notice. They attended political meetings and interrupted 
speakers to call attention to their demands; they went to the House 
of Commons and cried "Votes for women 1 " from the gallery 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



during the "debates; they stopped members on their way to the 
House in an endeavor to secure pledges of interest in their 
plans ; to avoid being removed from the parliament house, they 
chained themselves to the seats and the pillars in the gallery, then 
until the chains could be filed apart they screamed and prevented 
debate. As time went on these " militants," as they came to be 
called, adopted still more violent measures, turning their attacks 
from parliament to the general public in their determination to 
obtain attention to their demands and to make life so uncomfort- 
able to the community that their desires would be granted for the 
sake of peace and quiet. They poured acid into letter boxes to 
destroy the mails, broke the windows of offices, stores, and public 
buildings with hammers and stones, interrupted service in the 
churches by crying " Votes for women " and chanting parodies 
on the litany. A series of isolated outrages of a still more serious 
nature followed. In several places bombs were exploded, destroy- 
ing parts of buildings of historic interest, pleasure buildings and 
country houses were burned, old paintings in the art galleries were 
slashed with knives, the prime minister and some of his colleagues 
were set upon and beaten, a hatchet was thrown at the prime 
minister in his carriage, and in Dublin an attempt was made to 
burn a theater. They tried to reach the king on the race course, 
in Buckingham Palace, and as he drove in the streets, demanding 
that he interpose in the matter. 

Punishment for their disorders proved to be difficult. At first 
they were arrested and immediately discharged, then fined or sent 
to prison for short terms; then, as the offenses became more se- 
rious, they were sentenced to the full measure of the law. They 
tried to defeat the carrying out of the sentences by "hunger strikes." 
These were met by forcible feeding, a barbarous procedure, but 
apparently unavoidable, unless they were to be allowed either to 
die or to outwit the law by securing an immediate discharge. 

Militancy was disapproved of by much the greater number of 
suffragists. It was the policy of a small but extremely active, 



SOCIAL CHANGES 699 

determined, and self-sacrificing minority. In 1908 and from time 
to time afterward the National Union of Women's Suffrage 
Societies, the oldest and largest body favoring the cause, issued 
protests against the use of violence, and declared their belief that 
their end could be reached by the usual forms of agitation. In 
19 1 2 some of the more influential members of the Social and 
Political Union split off, believing that the policy of violence was 
going too far. The populace also was generally opposed to the 
activity of the militants, and frequently it was only the interposition 
of the police for their protection that prevented them from being 
beaten, thrown into the water, or otherwise ill treated by angry 
crowds. In 19 14 other events, which are to be described later, led 
to a suspension of violence. 

628. The Anti-Suffragists. — In 1889 appeared the first organ- 
ized opposition to women's suffrage, in the form of a protest 
against its grant drawn up by a number of prominent women and 
published in one of the magazines. A society for the same pur- 
pose was formed in 1908 under the name National Anti-Suffrage 
League, and a Men's League was formed in the same year. These 
two were soon joined into the large and influential National League 
for Opposing Women's Suffrage. The object of this society is to 
oppose the extension of the parliamentary franchise to women 
while at the same time encouraging their activity in local govern- 
ment, school boards, and " other bodies concerned with the do- 
mestic and social affairs of the community," as it is expressed in 
their program. This refers to the right to vote for various local 
bodies, given from 1870 onward to women property owners and 
in some cases to all women residents, a right of which not much 
use had been made. 

629. The Liberal Party and Women's Suffrage. — In England 
reforms are usually brought about only when one of the great 
political parties takes them up as part of its regular program. 
There are so many matters always clamoring for attention in parlia- 
ment that adequate time for debate and satisfactory arrangements 



700 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

for a final vote are usually made only for those measures which 
the ministry and majority party have settled upon as party meas- 
ures. Women's suffrage has never been looked upon as a party 
question, its supporters being drawn from both the Liberals and 
Conservatives, though more largely from the former. When the 
Liberal party came into power in 1906 those interested hoped 
that along with other social and political reforms this would be 
taken up by the government. Mr. Lloyd George, Sir Edward Grey, 
and other ministers were strongly in favor of women's suffrage, 
and had declared personally in its favor in their election speeches. 
The prime minister, Mr. Asquith, and several other members of 
the ministry, on the other hand, were opposed to it. It could not 
therefore be taken up and carried through like measures to which 
the ministry as a whole was pledged. Any attempt to treat it as 
a party measure would cause some members of the ministry to 
"resign and thus would break the party strength. The most that 
could be obtained by the advocates of the measure was a promise 
from the prime minister that if the suffragists in parliament could 
carry an amendment to the proposed franchise bill, the ministry 
would accept it and incorporate women's suffrage in that bill. 
Such an amendment was later introduced, but in February, 19 13, 
as already stated, that bill, on notice from the speaker that the 
amendment would make it a new bill and therefore endanger its 
passage against the opposition of the House of Lords, was dropped, 
and women's suffrage for that time dropped with it. 

630. TKe Non-Partisan Bills. — In the meantime a new plan for 
getting women's suffrage through parliament was tried. A body 
known as the " conciliation committee " was formed, including all 
suffragists in the House of Commons, no matter to what party 
they belonged. This committee drew up a compromise bill and 
introduced it independently of the government. More than a 
majority of the members had before election pledged themselves 
to vote favorably on a bill if it was placed before them, and it was 
hoped that if these could all be drawn together the bill could be 



SOCIAL CHANGES 701 

carried by mere weight of numbers, without regard to party tactics 
or interests. 

This bill was in fact carried through its second reading in 19 10 
by a large majority, and a similar bill the next year came still nearer 
to final passage by a still larger majority. Yet when a final vote 
was actually taken in March, 19 12, the bill was defeated. Several 
private bills were afterward introduced and carried part way 
through their course, but none reached a final vote. Impressive 
demonstrations in 191 1 and 19 12, including a procession of women 
four miles long passing through London and a gathering in Hyde 
Park said to have numbered half a million people, showed the con- 
tinued interest of its advocates, but no further parliamentary steps 
on the subject were taken for several years. 

631. Labor Unrest. — Notwithstanding the many measures that 
were carried through parliament intended to improve the position 
of the mass of the people, there was still great dissatisfaction among 
workingmen. They very generally believed that their share of what 
was produced was too small and ought to be increased. They saw 
that on the contrary wages were remaining very nearly stationary 
while the cost of living on the whole was steadily rising. The only 
way to change this condition of affairs was to use their combined 
strength. to force employers to pay better wages, leaving them to 
settle the success of trade as best they might. As a result there 
were' many detached strikes. Since these were frequently in trades 
where the unions were not yet recognized, the men asked the em- 
ployers to give recognition to their unions and to agree not to 
employ any but members of the unions, — the policy known as the 
" closed shop." The men believed that only in this way could they 
be sure of securing good working conditions. This was moreover 
in the general direction of business development. Combination and 
organization in industry has been widespread among employers and 
managers of industrial enterprises. The men have been subject to 
the same influences and have in the same way striven to control 
through organization the conditions of their labor. This extension 



702 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of close combination among workingmen has, however, been op- 
posed by employers, both on their own account and in what they 
have believed to be the interest of non-union laborers. The result 
has been extreme bitterness in the struggles and much disorder 
during strikes. A "Conciliation Act" was passed in 1896 and in 
1908 the government began the creation of permanent "Concilia- 
tion Boards," or courts of arbitration, consisting of three or five 
persons, but their influence has not as yet been very extensive. 

632. The Great Strikes of 1911 and 1912. — In the years 191 1 
and 19 1 2 occurred three great strikes which disturbed England 
more than any earlier labor struggles, and while they lasted brought 
much of the industry of the country to a standstill. The first was 
the great railway strike. The four important railway unions merged 
their interests and grievances and agreed to act together. More than 
two hundred thousand men went out and for a few days scarcely 
a train ran in England or Scotland. There were serious riots, the 
troops were called out to keep order and protect property, and 
several persons were shot and killed. The ministry then intervened, 
and a series of compromises, almost forced upon both parties and 
more or less unsatisfactory to both, gradually brought the strike 
to an end. 

In February and March of the next year, 19 12, occurred the 
great coal strike, of more than a million miners, which has already 
been described. 1 Notwithstanding the intervention of the govern- 
ment and the establishment of wage boards in the coal-mining 
industry, much dissatisfaction with the rates settled upon by the 
joint boards continued to exist among the men. An increase of 
wages for many of the workmen was obtained by negotiation 
some months later, but there still remained much dissatisfaction. 

The third of this group of strikes, although considered a national 
strike, was in the main restricted to the one great port of London. 
Here the Transport Workers' Federation, uniting all branches of 
labor connected with the loading and unloading of ships and the 

1 See p. 688. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 703 

hauling of the goods from the wharves, struck in May, 19 12. More 
than eighty thousand men went out. A commission was appointed 
by the ministry to examine into the circumstances. This committee 
reported that, although both parties had broken the engagements 
they had formerly entered into, yet the men had substantial griev- 
ances. But the government declined to go further and to intervene 
in any compulsory manner, as it had in the case of the miners' 
strike. In order to prevent suffering of the community for lack of 
transport of the necessaries of life, the ministry provided police 
protection to the employers and their non-union workmen engaged 
in unloading and hauling goods, although they announced that 
they did so with reluctance. Many violent speeches were made 
and hard feelings expressed, but there was comparatively little 
disorder. Work on the docks is largely unskilled labor, and there 
were many men out of employment who were secured temporarily 
to fill the places of the strikers. Amidst much bitterness and dire 
suffering, therefore, the men were gradually starved out and the 
strike was an entire failure. 

633. The New Unionism. — The principal influence that led to 
the occurrence of these great strikes just at this time, as well as 
many lesser ones, was the rise of a more active and radical element 
among the trade unionists. Among the men belonging to the more 
poorly paid trades and among unskilled laborers, there was a gen- 
eral feeling that the older trade unions were no longer doing much 
for the great mass of workingmen. It was believed that the older 
unions were strong, comparatively rich, well settled in their ways, 
satisfied with what they had already obtained, and under the influ- 
ence of their older and more prosperous members. The older unions 
were looked upon as, in a certain sense, aristocratic and more inter- 
ested in their insurance funds than in wages and hours of labor. 
More radical men, therefore, in certain unions, in new organiza- 
tions that were now formed, and in the annual trade-union con- 
gresses, advocated making higher demands upon the government 
and upon their employers. A split occurred among trade-unionists ; 



704 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

the new unionists threw off what they considered the existing 
apathy of labor, brought about many contests, and adopted much 
more vigorous methods of seeking their ends. 

634. Socialism. — Much of the greater activity both of the 
government in its social reforms and of workingmen in their labor 
struggles was no doubt due to the partial acceptance during recent 
years of that general group of principles that is known as socialism. 
These principles, and plans based on them, have been partly the 
teaching of certain French, German, and other writers, partly such 
as have been thought out by Englishmen themselves. For more 
than a hundred years there have been men in England who have 
believed that the entire direction of the industry of the country 
ought no longer to be left in the hands of the men who own its 
land and capital. They consider that the possession and use of 
capital by individual men gives them too great control over all other 
men. Since the industrial revolution, manufacturing, mining, trade, 
and agriculture have been on so large a scale, industry has become 
so complex, and ordinary workmen are so dependent on their em- 
ployers, that those who possess capital are practically a ruling class, 
and the affairs of the country have been carried on in accordance 
with the needs and interests of this class. This in the belief of 
socialists has had many bad results, especially for the lower classes, 
who have continued to suffer from hard work, low wages, frequent 
lack of employment, and a failure to obtain a full share of the 
advantages of the progress of civilization. They believe also that 
many wars and much waste have been due. to the commercial and 
manufacturing interests of the capitalist classes. 

The simplest plan for avoiding the subjection of the lower 
and middle classes to . the interests of the possessors of capital 
would be to arrange for all production to be carried on by soci- 
ety at large through the government. Then there would be no 
privately owned factories, mines, stores, ships, or farms. All would 
belong to the government and be carried on by men in the employ- 
ment of the whole community, just as the post office is carried on. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 70$ 

All men would be government employees. Most socialists believe 
that these changes are so great that they must be brought about 
gradually, and all serious modern socialism consists in the adoption 
of measures intended either to overcome some of the evils of the 
private use of capital or to prepare the way for the introduction of 
community ownership. 

6 35- Organizations for extending Socialism. — Robert Owen 
and others early in the nineteenth century tried to introduce reforms 
which were of a socialistic nature. Later, about the middle of the 
century, Charles Kingsley and the so-called Christian Socialists 
encouraged cooperation and other plans for eliminating some of 
the evils of private business, and much of the teaching of Carlyle, 
Ruskin, and other writers tended in the same direction. But the 
first considerable body of men and women who advocated socialism 
in any definite way were those who in 1883 formed the society they 
called the Social Democratic Federation. Many of its early mem- 
bers were prominent in literature and art, the best-known perhaps 
being William Morris. 

At about the same time another organization was formed, also 
largely drawn from the intellectual and well-to-do class, whose 
object was not so much to strive for the immediate adoption of 
socialistic reforms as to spread as widely as possible a knowledge 
of the principles of socialism. The most prominent, probably, of its 
early members was George Bernard Shaw. Since they proposed 
to follow a policy of awaiting a favorable time they called them- 
selves the Fabian Society, after the Roman general Fabius, who 
adopted this plan of overcoming the Carthaginians., This society 
gradually grew from about thirty members to two thousand. For 
the purpose of extending its ideas it published the Fabian Essays, 
and its members have written several hundred tracts, delivered 
numerous lectures, and spread their principles through newspapers, 
in conversation, and in every other practicable way. 

Somewhat later, socialism took a more definite hold on the 
working classes. A number of the more aggressive labor leaders, 

RE 



706 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

who have been spoken of as the representatives of the new 
unionism, especially John Burns, Tom Mann, Ben Tillet, and Keir 
Hardie, brought about the organization of the Independent Labor 
party with the object of securing separate representation in par- 
liament, and in 1893 this body adopted a platform declaring for 
a distinctly socialistic policy. It joined, for elections, the new Labor 
party, formed in 1900. Their representatives in parliament soon 
rose in number from eleven to forty-three and formed, as already 
stated, a strong and well-organized section of the party in power. 
In addition to these and other socialist societies there is a wide- 
spread acceptance of many of the same ideas by men who do 
not call themselves socialists. This is shown by their willingness 
to support recent social reforms which limit the rights of private 
property, extend the functions of government, and make conditions 
more favorable for the mass of the people. 

636. Syndicalism. — During the years from 19 10 forward a 
great many among the working classes have declared their dis- 
satisfaction alike with the ordinary action of trade unions, with 
the results of labor representation in parliament, and even with 
socialism. Most of their ideas have come from France. This is 
indicated by the name " syndicalism " usually applied to this 
movement, that word being derived from the French syndicate a 
trade union. But the leaders of this movement are not merely 
trade unionists. They consider that no reforms brought about 
or likely to be brought about by any of the methods so far 
suggested are of any great advantage to the real masses of the 
people. The masses are still paid low wages, have irregular 
employment, and are required to follow the orders and submit to 
the requirements of those who manage the business of the country, 
whether these are private capital owners or officers of the govern- 
ment. They claim that if they can choose the officials of their 
trade unions and elect those who carry on the government, they 
can just as well choose the managers, buyers, salesmen, and other 
persons necessary for carrying on business. Their plan is therefore 



SOCIAL CHANGES 707 

not merely to obtain social legislation, such as has recently been 
carried through parliament, nor greater strength for trade unions, 
such as the older union leaders have worked for, nor even control 
of industry by the whole community, as advocated by the socialists, 
but what they call " direct action." This means such action, 
usually through frequent strikes, as will force the present employers 
to give up business and leave the laborers in each occupation 
in control of that occupation. Syndicalism so far has tended to 
embitter labor struggles but has not been a movement with a clear 
program of its own, or an organized party to support it. 

637. Disestablishment of the Welsh Church. — There was much 
opposition in Wales to the privileged position of the church of 
England in that province, and an agitation long existed to take 
away its official powers there, just as it had been disestablished in 
Ireland in 1869. Members of the church of England in Wales 
were only about one quarter of the church members of all denom- 
inations there, and three other religious bodies had each as many 
adherents. It seemed absurd therefore that the one body should 
have control of all the old religious and charitable endowments 
and occupy a specially favored position. Almost all the members 
of parliament from Wales demanded the disestablishment and disen- 
dowment of the official church, and a bill was introduced for that 
purpose in 1895 but failed of passage. Another was introduced in 
1909 but withdrawn. In 1910 a royal commission of investiga- 
tion reported, showing that on the whole the church of England 
in Wales was doing its work well and growing, but not more than 
the other denominations. In 19 12 a new disestablishment bill was 
introduced. It provided that a large part of the ancient endow- 
ments of the church, which were considered as public property, 
should be turned over little by little to a body of commissioners. 
These commissioners were to hand this property over to the county 
councils and Welsh colleges, to be applied to libraries, hospitals, 
dispensaries, free public halls, and other philanthropic objects. 
The Anglican church would have to organize as a voluntary body 



7o8 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and must in the main, like other churches, look for its support to 
private contributors, but to it were left all the cathedrals and par- 
ish churches. The bill was warmly debated and finally carried by a 
small majority only, many Liberals sympathizing with the Welsh 
churchmen and voting reluctantly against them from party alle- 
giance. Disestablishment was later postponed till after the war. 

638. Irish Home Rule The most difficult internal question in 

recent times has been the old problem of Irish home rule. But, 
however difficult it might be, the ministry was bound to take it up, 
because the Irish Nationalists, the party organized especially for 
the purpose of securing it, made up a substantial part of the ma- 
jority on which the Liberal ministry had to rely. Moreover, it was 
a part of the Liberal party platform, and it was clearly understood 
at the elections held in 1 9 1 o that, if that party should obtain a ma- 
jority, home rule for Ireland would be a part of their policy. Their 
success in the elections required them to carry out their pledges. 

A home rule bill was, therefore, introduced into parliament in 
the spring of 19 12. It provided for a separate parliament for Ire- 
land, to consist of a Senate and a House of Commons, both to be 
elected. Certain representatives of Ireland would also continue to 
sit in the imperial parliament. The Irish parliament could make 
laws for Ireland, although certain subjects were excepted, and the 
ordinary government of Ireland would be carried on by ministers 
subject to the control of the Irish parliament. A lord lieutenant 
would continue to represent the king in Ireland. A large number 
of provisions were made concerning money and other matters. 
Although the bill was debated almost continuously through the 
year 19 12, interest in it in England was not nearly so keen as it 
had been when the subject was up before. In Ireland, on the 
other hand, feeling on the subject was intense. An Irish national 
convention held in Dublin accepted the bill in the name of the 
Irish people, and the societies of Irish Nationalist sympathizers 
in the United States and the colonies sent over their approval 
and congratulations. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 709 

639. Opposition of Ulster. — Strong opposition, however, showed 
itself in Ulster, the group of counties in the north of Ireland whose 
inhabitants were mainly descended from the Scotch and English 
settlers of the seventeenth century. 1 There are many differences 
between Ulster and the other parts of Ireland. Its inhabitants are 
mainly Protestant, while the rest of Ireland is mainly Roman Cath- 
olic ; its interests are largely commercial and manufacturing, while 
the rest of the country is principally agricultural ; it is somewhat 
more wealthy and enterprising. The ministry tried to meet the 
difficulties arising from these differences by including in the bill 
provisions that no religious distinction should ever be made by 
the Irish parliament, and reserving a number of other points for 
the control of the Imperial parliament. Nevertheless, although 
all-the rest of Ireland, including the Catholics of Ulster, — all to- 
gether making up about four fifths of the population of the whole 
island, : — was strongly desirous of the passage of the home rule 
bill, the Protestants of Ulster withheld their agreement, fearing 
that they would be at a disadvantage if subjected to the rule of 
the Roman Catholic and agricultural majority in a parliament at 
Dublin. The opposition on the part of Ulster was strengthened 
by the active support of the Conservative and Unionist leaders in 
England, who not only sympathized with the opposition to home 
rule but saw in the contest a possible opportunity to secure the 
defeat of the ministry and bring their own party into power. They 
therefore encouraged the Ulster opposition in every way. 

Threats of armed resistance to the authority of a home rule 
parliament if it were formed were widely made. In September, 
19 1 2, a " Solemn Covenant" was signed by more than four hun- 
dred thousand men and women, in imitation of the agreement 
sworn to by their forefathers in the seventeenth century. They 
pledged themselves to do everything possible to defeat the plan of 
setting up a separate parliament in Ireland, and if this were done, 
to refuse to recognize its authority. The principal leader in this 

1 See p. 405. 



710 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

agitation was Sir Edward Carson, one of the representatives in 
parliament from Ulster. Later the " Ulster Volunteers" were organ- 
ized, drilled, secretly provided with arms, and took their oath to 
oppose any attempt to introduce any government in Ireland except 
that of the imperial parliament. The Roman Catholic portions of 
Ireland were spurred to activity by this threat to prevent home 
rule. The " National Volunteers " were soon formed there, and 
civil war in Ireland became a serious danger. In December, 19 13, 
the ministry prohibited the introduction of more arms into Ireland, 
but both bodies of Volunteers secured additional supplies by " gun- 
running," that is to say, unloading cargoes of guns at unusual places 
on the coast and at night. In September, 19 13, the leaders of the 
Ulstermen organized a " Provisional Government " which was to 
take charge of Ulster as soon as any attempt should be made, to 
put Ulster under the authority of an Irish parliament. 

There was much sympathy with the Ulster opposition among 
the officers of the army, and when early in the year 19 14 some 
regiments were ordered to the north of Ireland to put down possi- 
ble disorder, a number of the highest officers demanded guarantees 
from the ministry that they would not be called upon to force home 
rule on Ulster. Disputes in connection with this led to the retire- 
ment of about a hundred of the officers and to the resignation of 
the minister of war. The officers were subsequently restored, but 
the government issued an order forbidding officers in the future 
to inquire what service they were to be called upon to perform. 

640. Passage of the Home Rule Bill. — Notwithstanding the 
opposition and danger of armed conflict in Ireland and long and 
bitter debates in parliament, the home rule bill was carried by a 
substantial majority in the House of Commons in January, 19 13. 
It then went to the House of Lords, where it was, as was antici- 
pated, immediately defeated by an overwhelming majority. It was 
again carried through the House of Commons in the summer of 
19 13, and an attempt was made to secure better success in the 
House of Lords by introducing at the same time an amending bill 



SOCIAL CHANGES 



;n 



providing that the counties of Ulster might take a vote and, if the 
majority wished, remain outside of the home-rule arrangement for 
six years. The House of Lords did not accept this plan, but passed 
a substitute amendment of an entirely different character. 

Still another attempt was made to reach some agreement by a 
conference of prominent advocates and opponents of home rule 
called by the king at 
the suggestion of the 
ministry, but they could 
not reach any satisfac- 
tory compromise. The 
bill was then again 
passed by the House 
of Commons, and as 
this was its third pas- 
sage, it was signed by 
the king and became 
law in September, 19 1 4; 
by this time, however, 
other events had oc- 
curred that made its 
immediate enforcement 
undesirable, so parlia- 
ment passed at the same 
time a bill for suspend- 
ing its operation for one 
year, and the ministry promised before that time to introduce another 
amending act which it was hoped would gain general acceptance. 

641. Accession of George V. — Edward VII died in May, 19 10. 
His only surviving son succeeded him with the title of George V. 
The new king had been trained on the sea, and was not very well 
known. Although apparently not a man of high mental powers, he 
was honest and devoted to duty, and showed himself straightforward, 
simple in his manner, and willing to conform to the requirements 




King George V 



712 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

of his position. The part taken by the king in ruling the country 
is now but small, as shown by the slight part taken by him in 
the acts for social reform described at the beginning of this chap- 
ter, and even in such fundamental changes as the parliament act 
and the home-rule bill. The same thing was soon to be shown 
with regard to questions of war and peace. The king embodies 
the national unity, exercises a certain amount of personal influence, 
and serves as a center of national patriotism and a medium for 
relations with other governments. All other political power is ex- 
ercised by the ministry in office at the time, and by the majority in 
parliament on which their right to act is based. 

One of the few ways, however, in which the new king has been 
able to exert an effect has been by drawing the various parts of the 
empire closer together. Immediately after his accession he made a 
series of visits with the queen, the Prince of Wales, and his only 
daughter to Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, where numerous festivi- 
ties were attended by the royal party, and new libraries, colleges, 
hospitals, and other public buildings were hurriedly finished in order 
to be opened by the king. 

The next year a more distant journey was made. This was the 
visit of the king and queen to India, where for the first time an 
English ruler in person was crowned emperor of India. The Dur- 
bar, or meeting of the Indian princes for this purpose, was held at 
Delhi, the old capital of the early emperors. The ceremonies were 
carried out with oriental magnificence, and proclamations were issued 
by the new emperor for various changes in the government of India, 
the most important of which was the transfer of the central govern- 
ment from Calcutta, the principal commercial city, to_Delhi. 

642. Advance of Imperial Federation. — Following upon the 
Boer War, with the increased interest of the colonies in the mother 
country and that of the mother country in the colonies, due to the 
share they took in that struggle, a second imperial conference of the 
prime ministers or other representatives of the four great colonies, 
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, was called to 



THE GREAT WAR 713 

meet in London, the first having met at the queen's golden jubi- 
lee, in 1887. Since then there has been such a conference every 
four years. In 191 1 a new step was taken, when Sir Edward 
Grey, the British foreign secretary, took the colonial representatives 
into the confidence of the ministry by appearing before them and 
giving a full and official explanation of British international rela- 
tions. A naval defense system was also adopted, by which war 
ships should be built by each of the colonies, and a navy maintained 
on the model of that of Great Britain in time of peace and put at 
the disposal of the mother country in time of war. The next year 
there was a special visit to England of Mr. Borden, prime minister 
of Canada, and some of his colleagues, for discussion of the whole 
subject of naval defense. The conference of 191 1 also recom- 
mended the adoption of a common system of imperial naturalization, 
the establishment of government communicating wireless stations 
in all countries of the empire, and a commission for the develop- 
ment of the productions and natural resources of the whole em- 
pire. It was also resolved that in future the colonial governments 
should be consulted when agreements which affected the colonies 
were being entered into by Great Britain with other countries. 

643. The Army and Navy. — The serious attention given in 
the colonial conferences to military and naval affairs indicates the 
gravest danger felt by the government of Great Britain in recent 
times, that of being plunged into an extensive war. The condition 
of the British islands is peculiar. Their small size and large popu- 
lation make them very dependent for their food supply on foreign 
countries. The occupation of the greater portion of the people 
in manufactures, commerce, mining, and personal service rather 
than in agriculture increases this dependence. Of every five 
bushels of grain or barrels of flour used in England, four come 
from abroad, only one is produced in the country ; of the meat, 
more than one half is imported. Of lesser articles of food, like 
eggs, fruit, and fresh vegetables, a very large proportion is brought 
from France, Holland, and Denmark. In order to get her food, 



^14 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

therefore, England must preserve control of the sea. If during 
a war any foreign nation was in a position to prevent vessels with 
grain, meat, and other food from coming into English ports, she 
would soon be brought to the edge of starvation and would have 
to submit to any terms the other country cared to impose upon 
her. She has, besides, colonies in all parts of the world, which must 
be protected against foreign aggression. 

It has therefore been the policy of all parties in England to keep 
her navy stronger than any probable combination of enemies. This 
was made especially difficult by the steady increase in the strength 
of the fleet of Germany, with which England felt herself more 
likely to come into conflict than with any other country. For a long 
time it was England's ambition to keep her navy as strong as those 
of any two other countries. This plan has been given up, partly 
because it was too expensive, partly because she could always count 
on help from her allies in case of war. Nevertheless, in order to 
keep up her preponderance, she has felt it necessary to build a 
great number of naval vessels of all kinds, to enlist a constantly 
increasing number of men in her navy, and to pay enormous sums 
for naval equipment. She built within the ten years from 1902 to 
19 1 2 about 60 battleships, 130 cruisers, 200 destroyers, and 75 
submarines, and naval expenditures rose to about $250,000,000 a 
year. A naval war staff was created in 19 12 to strengthen the 
organization of the navy. 

To her army England did not pay nearly so much attention. 
Instead of making all men serve for a certain number of years, 
as is customary in most of the countries of Europe, she kept up 
a standing army of less than two hundred thousand men. There 
was, however, much feeling that this was insufficient ; and, in ad- 
dition, reserves, a territorial army, and a militia were organized for 
use in case of war. Much of Salisbury Plain, the wide, barren upland 
in southwestern England, has been purchased by the government 
for use for camping, training, and manoeuvring the troops and as a 
possible battle ground in case of invasion. In drill, experience, and 



THE GREAT WAR 715 

equipment these reserves and territorial troops were, however, 
necessarily inferior to the standing armies of the other principal 
countries of Europe. Great Britain relied on her fleet to protect 
her from invasion, and on her disinclination to war to avoid the 
necessity for the use of troops as an attacking body. 

A new branch of military activity has arisen with the invention 
and development of airships of various kinds. In 19 12 a Royal 
Flying Corps was organized, with a branch for the army and one 
for the navy, a government manufactory and many stations, and 
a training ground on Salisbury Plain. The military, naval, and 
other similar interests of England are controlled by a Board of 
Defense consisting of the highest officers of each branch. The total 
annual expenditure for national defense amounted in 19 12 to about 
$375,000,000, an average of about $8 a year for each man, woman, 
and child in Great Britain. 

644. The Triple .Entente. — The foreign relations of England 
were deeply influenced by the formation of what came to be known 
as the triple entente, a French expression meaning an agreement 
or understanding among three countries. It was formed in 1904 
by the entrance of England into an agreement already existing be- 
tween France and Russia. These two countries had made a close 
alliance in order to make themselves as strong as the Triple Alliance, 
the union of Germany, Austria, and Italy. These two alliances were 
intended to preserve the balance of power in Europe, the smaller 
states either being guaranteed their neutrality by treaties among 
the larger countries or being so weak in a military way as not to 
count. England had long remained isolated, but more and more 
felt the need of some alliance in case she must go to war. She was 
on notably good terms with the United States, but that country 
was very distant. Like England, also, the United States had a strong 
navy but not a strong army, and was disinclined to war. Moreover, 
the United States was not involved in the international disputes 
of Europe. England therefore turned naturally to the two powers 
which were opposed to her most probable antagonist, Germany. 



716 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The connection of England with France and Russia was merely an 
"understanding" that their international interests were very similar 
and that in a general way they would support one another, not a 
regularly signed alliance. Nevertheless it was strengthened by sup- 
port given from time to time by one country to the other. In 191 1, 
when a difficulty arose between Germany and France concerning 
their interests in Morocco, the English government indicated that 
she would not leave France isolated in its settlement. In 1 9 1 2 the 
Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy was renewed 
for a period of seven more years, and various opportunities were 
taken in France, Russia, and England to remind the world and one 
another of the continued existence of the entente among these three 
great powers. 

645. The Japanese Alliance. — A still closer alliance, although 
affecting a more distant region, was the defensive treaty between 
Great Britain and Japan, entered into in the first place in 1902, 
expanded into a formal alliance in 1905, and strengthened and 
continued for ten years more in 19 11. It bound the two countries 
to act together for the purpose of keeping -the peace in eastern 
Asia, preserving China from seizure by other countries, and de- 
fending their own special interests in that part of the world. 

646. The Great War. — In July, 1 9 1 4, the great war which all the 
countries of Europe had been dreading for years, trying to avoid, and 
yet preparing for, suddenly broke out. Some statesmen and many 
lovers of peace had long sought means to prevent the growth and 
constant readiness for attack of the great armies and navies of 
the various countries of the world. The socialists and some other 
parties had constantly protested against war and preparations for 
war. A series of conferences had been held at The Hague in 
Holland, not only to agree upon rules for diminishing the barbari- 
ties of war but to find means of making the outbreak of war less 
likely. But the nations were suspicious of one another and were 
not willing to trust the settlement of their differences of interest 
to peaceful means. Wars among lesser countries in more distant 



THE GREAT WAR 



7W 



parts of the world still occurred. Their interest in these conflicts 
and other disputes brought the larger countries of Europe over 
and over again to the very verge of war. This time they went 
over the brink. 

The immediate occasion for the war was a dispute between 
Austria and the little adjoining country of Servia. In June, 19 14, 
the crown prince of Austria and his wife were assassinated at the 
capital of one of the provinces of that empire. The Austrian gov- 
ernment held Servia responsible for this murder and for the many 
plots among Austrian subjects of the same race as the Servians. 
She therefore made certain harsh and peremptory demands upon 
Servia which that country refused to accept. Austria thereupon 
declared war upon her. Russia, which looked upon herself as the 
protector of Servia and other small states of the Slavonic race to 
which her people belonged, and which was, moreover, unwilling to 
see Austria's power increased by the probable conquest of Servia, 
immediately protested, threatened to declare war on Austria, and 
began the mobilization of her troops. 

Germany, claiming that Russia with her army once in the field 
might attack her, declared she would support her ally Austria, pro- 
ceeded to mobilize her vast army, and on August 1 declared war 
on Russia. This involved France, which immediately prepared to 
put her army in the field. Germany then declared war on France. 
Thus two of the countries of the Triple Alliance were at war with 
two of the Triple Entente. For a few days it was uncertain what 
England would do. Her foreign minister tried to bring the hostile 
countries to agree to a conference for the settlement of their differ- 
ences without going to war, but unsuccessfully. Germany offered 
England -various terms if she would remain neutral during the war, 
but none that the English government felt that they could honor- 
ably accept. Germany then announced that she had reason to be- 
lieve that France was preparing to attack her through Belgium, 
that " necessity knows no law," and that she would have to disre- 
gard the treaties by which Belgium, which lay on the easiest route 



yiS A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

between Germany and France, was protected from invasion. Eng- 
land then inquired from France whether she would respect the 
neutral rights of Belgium, and France agreed to do so. When 
Germany began to march her armies through Belgium, England, 
on August 4, declared war upon her. The great war was there- 
fore begun, so far as England was concerned, mainly because she 
was not willing to see Belgium invaded without coming to her 
help, but partly also, no doubt, because she felt that she must aid 
her two allies and because she dreaded the results to herself of 
German success. Three of the ministers resigned rather than take 
the responsibility of carrying on the war, and Lord Kitchener, 
although a Conservative, became Secretary of State for War. 

647. The Attitude of Other Countries. — Italy, the third member 
of the Triple Alliance, claiming that her own interests were not in- 
volved, that her allies were the attacking, not the attacked, parties, 
and being at heart antagonistic to Austria, refused to support that 
country and Germany and declared herself neutral. All the other 
countries of Europe, the United States, and other American coun- 
tries also declared their neutrality. In the far East, on the other 
hand, Japan, on the ground that she was carrying out the principle 
of her alliance with England, that of keeping peace and protecting 
China from other foreign influences, demanded that Germany with- 
draw from Kiao-chow, her one foothold in China, and dismantle her 
few ships of war in the East until the war was over. Germany sent 
no reply to this demand ; Japan thereupon declared war upon her, 
sent a military and naval force, in September, 19 14, to attack the 
harbor and defenses of Kiao-chow, and in November captured them, 
as well as a number of scattered islands in the Pacific formerly in 
the possession of Germany. In the same month Turkey also 
entered the war on the side of Germany and Austria. 

648. The Battles in Belgium and France. — The Germans ap- 
parently believed that Belgium would not resist when they demanded 
a passage across that country to the French border, and offered to 
restore her territories to her unharmed or with compensation for 



THE GREAT WAR 719 

losses when the war was over. But the Belgians, deeply stung in 
their national pride, unwilling to participate in this violation of 
international agreements, knowing that they had strong forts and 
a well-prepared, even if small, army, and trusting to the help of 
France and England, refused their consent. When Germany then 
declared war upon them and began to march across their borders 
they resisted in a series of brave, hard-fought, and destructive bat- 
tles. The enormous mass of the German army and its equipment 
of siege guns were too powerful, and their allies were too far away, 
for the Belgians to have more than temporary success against the 
invaders. Step by step they were forced to fall back, leaving their 
country, with the exception of a narrow strip in the extreme west, 
in the possession of the Germans. There was vast loss of life in 
the armies, and most deplorable suffering and destruction of the 
peaceful people, their private possessions, houses, cities and towns, 
churches and other public buildings. 

Early in August the first detachment of English troops crossed 
the Channel and united with the French army. Later others were 
sent over as they were recruited, drilled, and equipped in England, 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. As in the Boer War, the great self- 
governing colonies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South 
Africa immediately offered troops and supplies, and the native 
princes of British India likewise offered their troops, money, and 
their own services. All of these were accepted by the home gov- 
ernment 'and gradually brought into the field. But the non-military 
•character of England, and still more of the colonies, made the prepa- 
ration and equipment of these troops a slow matter. By common 
consent all conflict between parties on questions of internal policy, 
such as home rule, women's suffrage, and labor questions, was 
suspended, and unanimous action took place for the financial and 
other support of the ministry in carrying on the war. 

In the meantime the Germans fought their way through Belgium 
and northern France until they almost reached the suburbs of 
Paris. Then the fortunes of war changed and they retreated about 



720 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

fifty miles to the northeast, pursued closely by the French and 
British armies. This first victory of the Allies, won between 
September 5 and September 10, 19 14, is known as the battle 
of the Marne. The Germans, after their retreat, established them- 
selves in entrenchments carefully prepared in favorable locations 
along the ridges of eastern France, and successfully withstood 
further efforts of the French and British to drive them back. 
Thus began the long war of the trenches, which continued on 
this western battle front for more than four years. The year 19 14 
closed with a series of stubbornly fought battles along this line and 
in Belgium. 

649. The Western Front, 1915-1917. — During the next year 
there were numberless engagements between these armies facing 
one another, but nothing decisive was accomplished, although 
asphyxiating gas, liquid fire, hand grenades, machine guns, high 
explosives, and other destructive devices were largely used. Great 
Britain gradually increased her number of men in France. By the 
close of 19 1 5 she is supposed to have had more than a million 
men, and by the end of 19 16 more than two million men, on 
the fighting front. There was a still greater increase in cannon 
and ammunition, partly imported from America, but more and 
more, as time went on, produced by British munition works. By 
the middle of 19 17 there were five million men and women in 
Great Britain engaged in work connected with the war, a great 
part of them working in munition factories. As a result of this 
increase in men and equipment the British took over from the 
French a large part of the battle line, and undertook with them 
the task of driving the enemy from France and Belgium. 

From February to August, 19 16, the Germans made a terrific 
but unsuccessful attack on the French forces around the great 
fortress of Verdun. When this was over, the British and French 
began a long-continued and frequently suspended but never 
abandoned drive forward against the Germans, sometimes on one 
part of the line, sometimes on another. The battle which extended 



THE GREAT WAR 72 1 

from July to September, 19 16, is known as the battle of the 
Somme, a later movement was directed against the Ancre 
Valley and still another against the Vimy Ridge, another takes its 
name from the city of Arras, and another big advance was made 
east of the city of Ypres. As a result of these repeated attacks 
and of those made by the French along their part of the line the 
Germans, early in 19 17, withdrew a considerable distance to new 
and stronger positions known as the Hindenburg Line. This 
left to the British and French a broad strip of France formerly 
occupied by the German army, but left in absolute devastation, 
cities, villages, farmhouses, roads, bridges, and orchards all being 
destroyed deliberately and completely. In November, 19 17, a 
surprise attack was made by the British against a broad stretch 
of the German line, and in a few days they had broken through 
and approached Cambrai. 

For the purpose of advancing against the entrenchments, espe- 
cially those on ridges, the English invented and put into use 
" tanks," which were immense, heavily armored motor trucks 
guided by men on the inside. They ran on long " caterpillar 
treads" in place of wheels, which enabled them to pass over 
trenches and deep holes, to break their way through barbed-wire 
entanglements, and to climb up the ridges even against concen- 
trated fire from the enemy. These attacks against the front of 
the German lines cost a terrible price in life, suffering, and am- 
munition, but they gradually pushed the invaders out of parts of 
France and Belgium which had been conquered and helped to 
destroy German self-confidence and hopes of victory. 

650. Other Fields of War. — Immediately after the outbreak 
of the war British, colonial, and Allied troops invaded the Ger- 
man colonial possessions and successively conquered them all. 
An expedition organized for the most part in India was sent to 
Mesopotamia against the Turks. It was, however, badly equipped 
and ill supported, and in April, 19 16, the commander with all his 
forces was compelled to surrender at Kut-el-Amara. A year later, 



722 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

however, a larger British expedition followed the same route, and 
in March, 19 17, captured the ancient city of Bagdad. About the 
same time an army of British, Australians, and Indians, which had 
been defending the Suez Canal against a threatened attack from 
the Turks, marched northward into Palestine and, after much 
fighting with the Turks, entered the city of Jerusalem, Decem- 
ber 10, 191 7. As against these comparatively successful expedi- 
tions the year 19 15 saw the calamitous Gallipoli expedition. A 
combined British and French fleet tried to force its way through 
the Dardanelles to capture Constantinople. Several vessels were 
sunk by the shore batteries. An army was then collected in Egypt 
and landed in the Gallipoli peninsula; but notwithstanding some 
months of heavy fighting and much suffering from lack of water 
and from disease and exposure, nothing was accomplished. The 
campaign was a complete failure, and in January, 19 16, what 
remained of the troops were withdrawn. The encampment of 
the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps which fought so 
gallantly in this campaign was called from their initials " Anzac," 
and Anzacs has since become the familiar name of the troops 
from those colonies. 

While these expeditions in which the British were engaged were 
taking place, a series of campaigns in which Britain was inter- 
ested through her allies was taking place in eastern Europe. The 
result of these campaigns up to the latter part of 1917 was that 
Poland, Serbia, Montenegro, and Rumania were overrun and 
occupied by either Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, or Turkey. In 
November, 19 17, a sudden advance of a combined German and 
Austrian army swept through the defenses of northeastern Italy, 
deprived the Italians of- all their recent conquests, and carried 
their invasion almost to Venice. 

651. Maritime and Aerial Warfare. — On the sea the German 
fleet remained for the most part in harbor, and the British fleet 
occupied itself in keeping the seas open for British commerce and 
for that of her allies and of neutrals engaged in commerce with her. 



THE GREAT WAR 723 

Nevertheless a number of both war and merchant vessels were 
destroyed by raiders, by sunken mines, and by torpedoes ; and 
several minor naval battles in the North Sea and in distant parts 
of the world resulted in the destruction of large battleships of both 
the British and the Germans. German cruisers also repeatedly 
slipped across the North Sea and, contrary to all international 
law, bombarded unfortified English coast towns. 

Only one large naval engagement took place between the British 
and German fleets. This was the battle of Jutland, May 31, 19 16. 
An English fleet of fast cruisers came into conflict with the Ger- 
man warship fleet. The English vessels, being smaller, suffered so 
severely that they withdrew till their larger warships should come 
up. When the combined English fleets returned to the scene of 
action, the Germans had steamed again into harbor. The German 
fleet did not appear again in the open sea to give battle. The 
destruction of British merchant vessels by German submarines, 
however, increased very greatly in 19 16 and created fear in 
Great Britain that her food supply might be cut off and the trans- 
port of troops and supplies seriously interfered with. By July, 191 7, 
some thirty-two hundred British merchant vessels, amounting to 
more than eight million tonnage, had been sunk. But this destruc- 
tion diminished during the latter part of 191 7, many of the sub- 
marines were themselves destroyed, and much new shipping 
was built. 

Airships played a large part in the war, aeroplanes being con- 
stantly used in vast numbers in scouting work over the battle lines 
and for dropping bombs on hostile positions back of the lines. 
England suffered severely from destruction and loss of life in 
London and other places from bombs dropped from German 
Zeppelins and aeroplanes. In thirty-six separate raids across the 
Channel and the North Sea more than eight hundred persons were 
killed and twenty-five hundred wounded. The slaughter of women 
and children in these atrocious attacks served only to strengthen 
popular determination to carry on the war vigorously. 



724 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

652. Entrance of New Belligerents, 1915-1917. — During the 
•early part of the war long and severe disputes broke out between 
Great Britain and neutral countries, especially the United States, 
the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries, concerning the 
British extension of the claims of contraband, her interference 
with cargoes of goods consigned to neutral countries which she 
claimed would finally reach her enemies, and her stoppage of 
mails in vessels on the high seas. She declared her action justi- 
fiable and explained that she was using her right of seizure of 
contraband with as little injury to neutrals as possible. 

Germany, on the other hand, protested to the neutral states 
against Great Britain's laying of mine fields in the open North 
Sea, her policy of using her command of the sea to keep all 
food supplies from reaching Germany, thus threatening German 
women, children, and noncombatant men with starvation, and 
her general interference with world commerce. As a measure of 
retaliation, as she claimed, Germany declared all the seas sur- 
rounding the British Isles a closed zone and proceeded to sink 
with torpedoes from her submarines all vessels, British or neutral, 
which passed through those waters. This inhumane and reckless 
policy of submarine warfare caused an ever-growing hostility to 
Germany on the part of all countries which had vessels on the sea. 

One country after another joined in the war on the same side 
as Great Britain. In May, 19 15, Italy declared war against 
Austria, and a year later she declared war against Germany also. 
In February, 19 16, Portugal fulfilled her old treaty arrangements 
with England by seizing all German ships in her waters. Ger- 
many then declared war upon her. Rumania entered on the 
side of the Allies in August, 19 16; Siam and China declared 
war against Germany in 191 7 ; and many lesser states in distant 
parts of the world broke off friendly relations with her. By 
far the most important new opponent of Germany, however, was 
the United States, which entered the war in April, 191 7. From 
her unlimited resources she began immediately the loan of large 



THE GREAT WAR 725 

sums of money to Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, and Russia. 
A fleet was sent to European waters in May, and the first American 
troops arrived in France in June. After that time others were steadily 
added to the Allied fighting forces, and by the end of the year 19 17 
they had taken their place in the battle line in the east of France. 

653. Political Changes, 1915-1917. — After the war had been 
in progress about eight months, criticism of the ministry be- 
came so severe that in May, 19 15, Mr. Asquith reorganized it as 
a Coalition ministry, including almost as many men from other 
parties as there were Liberals. A new office was also created, the 
ministry of munitions, in which Lloyd George was placed, as 
being the most energetic man in public life. In this position he 
achieved great results, inducing parliament to give authority to 
the ministry to take all munition industries under their control, 
and gradually increasing their number and transforming them 
into government works. By July, 19 16, there were four thou- 
sand establishments under government control. Later Lloyd 
George became minister of war. 

By December, 19 16, the ministry was so divided that Lloyd 
George threatened to resign unless certain changes were made. 
Mr. Asquith would not agree to these and resigned, leaving Lloyd 
George to make up a ministry in which he was prime minister, 
most of the ministers Unionists, and the real power lodged in a 
small group, or w war cabinet," of five men. A number of mem- 
bers of this ministry were heads of large business organizations, 
and among the most influential members were men who had been 
bitter opponents of Lloyd George before the war. Since all these 
changes in the ministry were made without any corresponding 
change in the House of Commons, it is evident that the ministry 
was less representative than it had previously been. Much of 
the criticism that led to the changes was made in a group of. news- 
papers owned and controlled by Lord Northcliffe, whose influence 
was thus very large, thpugh he had himself no connection with the 
cabinet and seldom spoke in parliament. 



; 2 6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

None of these changes indicated any weakening of the ministry 
in the prosecution of the war. It was obviously the wish of the 
great majority of parliament and of the people that the war should 
continue to be fought until what Lloyd George described as a 
" knock-out blow " should be given to Germany. 

From the beginning of the war, however, there was a small 
but earnest group of " pacifists " in parliament, with a considerable 
party behind them in the country, who used every opportunity 
to urge entering into negotiations to bring the war to an end. 
In February, 19 15, the Labor party at its convention demanded 
that peace should be made as soon as possible, and at several 
periods influential bodies among the trade-unionists declared for 
an early peace. But as the war progressed, the organized labor- 
ers agreed more generally to fighting it out " to the bitter end." 
In February, 19 16, the pacifists forced a debate in the House of 
Commons on the whole question of war aims and the possibility 
of peace. On the occasion of the German peace offer and the 
note of the President of the United States, in December, 19 16, 
they again brought the matter up in parliament and made it the 
subject of debate. 

On the breaking out of the Russian revolution in the spring of 
19 1 7, and the demand of the new government of that country for 
an early peace " without annexations and without indemnities," the 
belief was strengthened that the working classes and liberal ele- 
ments in Germany could be induced to oppose their government 
if liberal war aims were announced by the. Allied governments. 
A peace resolution based on such a belief was introduced into par- 
liament but was defeated by a vote of 148 to 19. The general 
discussions concerning the possibility of peace that characterized 
the year 191 7, the address of President Wilson before the Senate 
in January in which he laid down possible conditions of peace, the 
proposed international conference of socialists at Stockholm, the 
renewed intimations of a desire for peace from Austria and 
Germany, and the letter sent by the pope in August to all the 



THE GREAT WAR y 2 J 

belligerent countries each awakened some echo in England and 
received at least a partially sympathetic response. 

November 29, 19 17, these possibilities of attaining peace were 
suddenly brought anew into discussion by a letter published in the 
newspapers by the Marquis of Lansdowne, who had repeatedly 
served as minister of foreign affairs but was not now in office. 
He declared that an attempt should be made to bring about 
peace before " the prolongation of the war leads to the ruin of 
the civilized world," and urged a clearer and more liberal state- 
ment of the war aims of the British Empire to the people of 
Germany. Whatever may have been the influence of this appeal 
or the extent of peace sentiment in Great Britain, the overwhelm- 
ing majority were still determined to carry on the war to a complete 
victory over Germany. 

During 19 14 and 19 15 recruiting for the army was carried on 
by seeking volunteers, and an active army of 1,500,000 soldiers 
was thus secured. The need for additional men, however, led 
to an agitation for compulsory military service, as was required 
in the continental countries. Although this proposal was at first 
strongly opposed by a great part of the Liberal party and by 
almost the whole Labor party, opposition to it became less and 
less, and in February, 19 16, partial conscription was adopted; in 
May a still more complete conscription act was passed, making 
all men from eighteen to forty-one years of age liable to military 
service. Ireland was not subject to this act, and conscientious 
objectors to war were also exempted. Early in the war a bill 
had been passed for registering all men and women from fifteen 
to sixty-five years of age, to learn how they could be most use- 
fully employed. This was extremely unpopular, and the ministry 
was forced to explain that it did not signify the " conscription 
of labor." In March, 19 17, however, a National Service Bill 
was passed, enrolling all men between the ages of eighteen and 
sixty-one, those not called for military service being subject to 
call, though not by actual compulsion, in any trade to which the 



728 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

government should assign them, none to be paid less than $6.25 
a week. This was agreed to with great reluctance by the Labor 
party. As a matter of fact the powers granted to the ministry were 
scarcely made use of. 

654. Ireland. Although the Irish Nationalist party gave their 
adherence to the war, there was much opposition to it among 
the people, and in its early months several newspapers were sup- 
pressed by the government for urging Irishmen not to enlist. A 
society known as Sinn Fein, whose object was Ireland's complete 
independence from Great Britain, was having a rapid growth at 
this time. On April 24, 19 16, an insurrection of volunteers belong- 
ing to this society suddenly broke out in Dublin. They seized 
the Post Office and several other buildings, issued a proclamation 
declaring Ireland a republic founded on universal suffrage, reli- 
gious and civil liberty, equality, and fraternity. They adopted a 
green, white, and gold flag and announced a provisional government 
under Pearse (a man of high character and attainments and prin- 
cipal of a Dublin school) as president. For a few days they 
had control of the center of Dublin, and the revolt threatened to 
spread through the country ; but Major General Sir John Maxwell, 
with overwhelming forces of British troops and artillery, was sent 
to Ireland, and attacked them, a warship shelled the rebels from 
the harbor, and five days after the rising President Pearse, who 
had never been really in favor of revolt, ordered a general sur- 
render, and his men laid down their arms. Several thousand were 
taken into arrest. The president and some fifteen others were 
immediately tried by secret court martial and shot in groups 
within the next three or four weeks ; others were sentenced to 
long terms of imprisonment, and a great number were still held 
under arrest. 

Just at the time of the insurrection Sir Roger Casement, an 
Irishman who had held a position of some prominence in public 
life, was captured as he was landing from a German submarine 
accompanied by a munition ship on the Irish coast. He was 



THE GREAT WAR 729 

imprisoned in the Tower and subsequently tried by a regular 
court, found guilty of treason, and hanged. Although the Nationalist 
party did not support the insurrection or sympathize with Case- 
ment's efforts to obtain German support, they were dissatisfied 
with the series of military executions, with holding prisoners with- 
out trial, with the hanging of Casement, and with the long delay 
in the introduction of home rule. Lloyd George was therefore 
appointed by the ministry to consult all parties in Ireland and 
suggest some action by way of a compromise. This he did, but 
his agreement was later disowned by the Unionists in the ministry. 
The Sinn Fein began again to grow rapidly in numbers, and the 
Nationalists appealed against the government to the United States 
and to the self-governing British colonies in the name of the rights 
of small countries to liberty. In May, 19 17, the ministry called a 
convention of Irishmen intended to be made up of representa- 
tives of all classes in Ireland, inviting them to draw up some kind 
of government short of entire independence. This convention 
met at Dublin in July and held many sessions in the next few 
months. It made its report to the prime minister April 12, 19 18. 
It had not been able to obtain anything approaching unanimity, the 
Ulster Unionists still holding out against any form of home rule. 
Nevertheless a majority of forty-four to twenty-nine reported a 
plan for the self-government of Ireland and urged parliament to 
pass and enforce this measure as a substitute for the home-rule 
bill passed in 19 14 but not yet brought into force. The prime 
minister announced that the cabinet intended to ask parliament 
immediately to follow this advice. 

Just at this time a new Irish controversy arose. In the increas- 
ing need for soldiers, as the war continued, the ministry proposed 
to extend the conscription act to Ireland, which had been omitted 
from the former acts. Against this the Nationalists made a bitter 
protest, claiming that they should have the same right as Canada 
or New Zealand to decide in their own legislature on a point of 
this kind. When the bill finally passed, the Nationalist members 



730 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

as a form of protest remained away from parliament. It was not 
found practicable actually to enforce the law, as Irishmen united 
in an almost universal statement of refusal to obey if they were 
drafted. The plan was therefore dropped, and in July the Irish 
members again returned to their seats in parliament. The ministry, 
however, at the same time that they dropped conscription dropped 
the proposed convention home-rule bill. The old act for home rule 
also remained suspended. 

In December there was a new election for parliament. An 
entirely new aspect was given to the Irish question by the over- 
whelming success of the Sinn Feiners at this election. Practically 
all the old Nationalist members lost their seats, and Sinn F'ein 
candidates were elected in their place ; though many of these were 
in prison at the time, their leaders having been arrested May 18 
on suspicion of entering into a conspiracy with the Germans. The 
few Irish Unionists were reelected. The Sinn Fein candidates had 
made it one of their election pledges that they would not attend 
the united parliament in Westminster but would consider them- 
selves members only of a purely Irish parliament. On January 
21, 19 19, therefore, these members, or such of them as were at 
liberty, held a meeting at Dublin, signed and issued a declaration 
of Irish independence, and proclaimed that the Irish Republic was 
now in existence. Professor Edmund De Valera was elected presi- 
dent, although he was in prison at the time. Subsequently he 
escaped and went to America and other countries, appealing for 
recognition for the new Irish Republic. They also sent delegates 
to Paris asking recognition as an independent government from 
the Peace Conference, which was in session at Versailles near by. 

655 . Last Campaigns of the War, March-November, 19 18. — The 
year 19 18 was a year of the greatest suffering, the greatest danger, 
and the greatest military triumph for Great Britain and her allies. 
Notwithstanding the advance which the British and French had 
made during the year 19 17, their more abundant supply of muni- 
tions, and the promise of American reinforcements, the German 



THE GREAT WAR 73 I 

hold of Belgium and the eastern regions of France had been 
hardly shaken, the withdrawal of Russia from the war enabled 
Germany to place new troops on her western front, and the 
desperate condition of her internal affairs required her to gather 
all her forces for a last tremendous effort which might well break 
through the thin British and French line. This great effort was 
launched March 21. The hope of the Germans was to accomplish 
three immediate ends : first, to drive a wedge between the British 
and French armies ; secondly, to capture Paris ; and thirdly, to 
advance to the English Channel, capture the remaining Channel 
ports, and thus threaten England more closely. To achieve these 
results the greatest number of men and cannon used in any battle 
in human history were thrown successively upon different parts of 
the line held by the English and French, the comparatively small 
number of Americans, and the few detachments of other Allies. 
They made their way forward. All the land the British and French 
had regained in 19 17 was again lost, and some that had been in 
Allied hands since the end of 19 14 was now recaptured by the 
Germans. The Allies also lost great numbers of prisoners, cannon, 
and supplies. This great German drive continued in successive 
waves from March to July, carrying them beyond the Marne River, 
further than they had been in 1 9 1 4, and within forty miles of Paris. 
Air raids were made over Paris such as had long been made over 
London, and the city was bombarded by cannon throwing shells 
from a distance of more than fifty miles. The French government 
contemplated leaving Paris as it had in the early part of the war. 

Yet certain outposts continued to be held by both the French 
and English through the whole struggle. A great addition of 
strength was obtained by the Allies en April 14, 19 18, by the 
concentration in the hands of the French General Foch of the 
command in chief of all the Allied armies fighting in the west 
against the Germans and their allies. A bold and self-sacrificing 
attack was made in May on the two German-held Belgian ports 
of Ostend and Zeebrugge. A little band of British sailors, soldiers, 



732 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

and marines slipped at night across the Channel and, at the cost 
of the death of many of the men and the destruction of most of 
the boats, sank obstructions at the entrance of the two harbors 
and thus destroyed their usefulness as submarine bases. The 
Allies were also obtaining supremacy in the air, and the Ameri- 
can reinforcements were arriving in ever-increasing numbers, more 
than a million being in France by the first of July and others 
coming at the rate of 300,000 a month. Dark, therefore, as was 
the outlook and apprehensive as were the western countries, their 
position was not without many elements of hope. 

The German advance was at highwater mark early in July. Yet 
this tide of success suddenly fell, and within the next five months 
the military overthrow of Germany occurred with striking sudden- 
ness and completeness. She had risked all on this campaign, and 
the other powers proved to be too strong for her. It became evi- 
dent that the strength of her advance was failing. Each successive 
drive slowed up sooner. In May American forces recaptured the 
village of Cantigny and held it against all German attacks, one of 
the first indications of the change in the fortunes of war. 

The great return blow of the Allies fell on July 18, 19 18. 
General Foch had been working out a great scheme of military 
operations, and he was now ready to put it to the test. He held all 
sections of the army — British, French, and American — at his dis- 
posal and used them in a constant series of surprise attacks against 
the Germans. Each day, almost, saw some new development of 
his massive plan. By the first of August the initiative in the war 
had definitely passed to the Allies, and the Germans were fighting 
on the defensive. By the first of September the Allies had broken 
through the famous Hindenburg Line, which the Germans had relied 
on holding against all attacks. Through September this great line 
of defenses was crumbling, and by the close of the month Allied 
advance was being made along more than two hundred miles 
of the western line. St. Quentin, many other famous cities, and 
hundreds of French and Belgian villages were being recaptured, — 



THE GREAT WAR 733 

sometimes fifty or more in a two or three days' battle. By the 
first of October it was no longer a question of either victory or 
retention of territory by the Germans, but of withdrawing without 
suffering a complete overthrow and capture of a great part of their 
forces. The Belgian coast was being bombarded by British war- 
ships, and on October 1 7 the whole German army in Belgium gave 
way and began a rapid retirement from that country. Cambrai 
and soon afterward Lille were recaptured. All this, of course, 
involved heavy fighting and immense losses on both sides, espe- 
cially in the dead, wounded, and prisoners of the Germans. By 
November first the end was rapidly approaching. The German 
armies were in full and rapid though skillful and, on the whole, 
orderly retreat. The triumph of the Allies over them was complete, 
unquestionable, decisive, and fully recognized by their own mili- 
tary leaders. Further conflict could only mean more complete 
destruction. 

656. Defeat of Germany's Allies. — In the meantime the Allies 
were achieving success in other fields of struggle. In Serbia, the 
place of origin of the great conflict, and in the regions near it the 
Austrian and Bulgarian armies, supported by the Germans, were 
in occupation, facing, apparently with entire success, detachments 
of British, French, and Greek troops in the south and French and 
Italian troops and the reorganized Serbian army on the southwest. 
In the middle of September a transformation suddenly took place. 
These Allied armies, under the general command of a French 
officer, moved forward in an astonishingly rapid series of attacks, 
which resulted in the capture of the mountain ridges and river 
valleys that control the region. On September 25 British troops 
entered Bulgarian territory, and French forces captured Uskiip, 
the principal military city of southern Serbia. Bulgaria, already 
bitter in her feeling toward the Germans and Austrians for their 
failure to give her the help she needed and to hand over to her 
the territory she wanted, made a sudden and complete surrender, 
yielding to the Allies the use of all of her territory and railroads 



734 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

for military attacks on Austria and Turkey. This occurred on 
September 30. Almost immediately the Serbians, helped by 
British and Italian warships from the coast, advanced into the 
interior and on November 1 reentered their capital, Belgrade. The 
downfall of Bulgaria was the first great breach in the central- 
European war citadel. 

The British troops in Palestine, after their capture of Jerusalem, 
made what seemed like slow progress against the Turks to the 
northward and eastward. But General Allenby was quietly pre- 
paring a much more extensive campaign. On September 19 he 
suddenly appeared in the level plains of northern Syria, provided 
with a large number of cavalry, supported by naval guns- from 
warships on the coast, and strengthened by Allied Arab detach- 
ments along the line of the Hedjaz railway. In a series of open 
battles he scattered all the Turkish armies in that part of the 
country, captured a large number of prisoners, and occupied 
Damascus and Aleppo, the Syrian capitals. French and British 
warships entered the harbor of Beirut, October 11, without 
resistance. Turkey, cut off from her allies in the north by the 
defeat of Bulgaria, and her forces thus scattered in the south, 
asked for terms of surrender and made a complete capitulation 
October 31. The Allied fleets passed through the Dardanelles 
and the Bosporus and anchored off Constantinople, and on 
November 21 British and French troops occupied the city. 

In Italy the Austro-Hungarians, who had continued to hold 
their conquests of 19 17, soon after the Germans began their great 
drive in France, in the early summer of 19 18, attempted a still 
further advance. But this attempt was a failure. Although they 
crossed the Piave River, they were met by strong Italian and Allied 
attacks. The river rose to a flood in their rear, and they suffered 
great losses. According to General Foch's strategy, however, the 
further advance of the Italians was held back until the victories of 
the Allies in France were far advanced. Late in October, however, 
the Italians swept across northern Italy, breaking the Austrians in 



THE GREAT WAR 735 

all directions and forcing them, powerless as they were on account 
of the internal breaking up of the monarchy, to ask for peace, 
which was granted them November 3, three days after the fall of 
Turkey and a month after the fall of Bulgaria. 

657. Fall of the German Empire; the Armistice, November 11, 
1918. — All Germany's allies had now been defeated and forced to 
retire from the war, and she was subject to attack through their 
territories. She was also being herself rapidly overwhelmed by the 
British, French, and American armies in France. From October 6 
forward, therefore, the new chancellor of Germany was making 
desperate efforts, through the intermediation of President Wilson, 
to obtain some favorable terms of retirement from the war. Con- 
ferences concerning these proposals were held among the repre- 
sentatives of the Allied nations at Paris, and on November 5 terms 
of surrender were agreed upon between them and put in the hands 
of General Foch for transmission. On November 6 they were 
handed to the German envoys and on November 1 1 accepted by 
them. The fighting phases of the war were over. 

Great Britain was, of course, only one of the contestants in the 
war, and the terms of the armistice were for the advantage of all 
alike, being drawn with the purpose of making it impossible for 
Germany to renew the war while the final terms of peace were 
being considered. Germany was therefore required to withdraw 
her troops from all invaded countries and to a considerable dis- 
tance within her own boundaries and to surrender a vast number of 
cannon, machine guns, munitions, airships, locomotives, and rail- 
way cars. All her undersea boats and fighting ships were either 
dismantled, surrendered where they were in neutral ports, or passed 
in a long column between English war vessels into Scapa Flow, a 
bay in the north of Scotland, where they were to be held until 
their final disposition should be settled in the treaty. Germany must 
immediately surrender Alsace-Lorraine, — her capture of 187 1, — 
return all prisoners of war and deported persons, and agree to 
make reparation for all damage done in other countries during the 



72,6 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

war. There were a great many other requirements, including pro- 
vision for the occupation by Allied armies of the parts of Germany 
west of the Rhine and of three extensive sections east of the 
Rhine at the principal crossings. It fell to Great Britain to occupy 
the city and district of Cologne and its bridgehead on the other 
side of the river. 

Early in December British, French, and American troops entered 
Germany upon the heels of her defeated and retreating army and 
established themselves in their respective spheres of occupation. 
In the meantime it became doubtful with what government of 
Germany peace would have to be made. On November 7, 
while the terms of the armistice were under consideration, revo- 
lutionary outbreaks occurred among the sailors and workingmen 
at Kiel, Hamburg, and other port towns. They spread from city 
to city and finally to Berlin itself. On November 10 the emperor 
and crown prince sought refuge in Holland, where later they 
signed documents abdicating their claims to the throne. The 
chancellor, Maximilian of Baden, handed over his office to Ebert, 
a socialist member of the Reichstag, and at the same time an- 
nounced that a German national assembly would be elected by 
universal suffrage to decide on the future form of government of 
Germany. It was with this new and uncertain form of government 
that peace would have to be made. 

658. The Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919. — The peace 
council met at Versailles, just outside of Paris, January 18, 1919. 
The representatives of Great Britain were the premier, Lloyd 
George, and four colleagues, all members of the ministry. Clemen- 
ceau, the French prime minister, was elected permanent chairman, 
but the English representative possessed a position and influence 
approximately equal to that of the chairman and of President 
Wilson, the principal representative for the United States, through 
the long negotiations. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South 
Africa — the self-governing colonies of Great Britain — were repre- 
sented separately, as if they were independent countries. It was 



THE GREAT WAR 



737 



early decided that the representatives of the five greater belligerent 
powers — Great Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and 
Japan — should take part in all meetings, while the representatives 
of the other countries which attended either as belligerents, 
interested neutrals, or newly created states should be invited to 
attend at sittings where their interests were directly affected. 
Against widespread outside protest it was determined by the 
Conference members that all sittings except those where final 
conclusions were reached should be private. Early in its discussion 
the Conference declared for the formation of a League of Nations, 
a project which had long been urged by reformers and which was 
now brought into prominence by President Wilson's advocacy, its 
approval by the representatives of the British workingmen and 
those of other countries, and its acceptance by many political lead- 
ers in all countries as one of the most vital consequences of the 
war. For a considerable time the discussions of the Conference 
were largely devoted to the planning of this League of Nations, 
but committees were at work including men outside of the body 
of special representatives and aided by the large corps of experts, 
provided with every kind of collected information, who had been 
brought to the Conference by each country. 

Such committees, — on reparations, responsibility for the war, 
international labor legislation, boundary questions, and many 
others, — one after another, brought the results of their labors 
to the main Conference. Finally, after five months of labor, 
the peace treaty with Germany was brought to completion and 
on June 28, 19 19, signed by the representatives of thirty-one states 
and by Germany herself. Like the armistice it was a joint pro- 
duction, in which there is almost no mention of Great Britain 
separately, but in which she shares with the other Allies the fruits 
of victory. These are to be found, in the first place, in her mem- 
bership in the League of Nations, with all its hopes for the future ; 
secondly, in her relief, along with all the rest of the world, from 
threatened German military, naval, and diplomatic, aggression. The 



738 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

reduction of the force of German competition in trade and manu- 
factures will undoubtedly redound to the financial advantage of 
England. Besides these results the British Empire, as in so many 
other wars, has been much increased in extent. Either directly 
or as mandatories of the League of Nations, England and her 
self-governing dominions obtained by the treaty possession of most 
.of the former colonial dominions of Germany. 

J59. The New Reform Bill; Election of 191 8. — The war had 
a deep effect on constitutional development. Immediately on its out- 
break the advocates of women's suffrage announced that they 
would cease any activity hampering the government in its task of 
carrying on the war. The ministers who had been engaged in trying 
to force through the House of Lords a bill. against plural voting 
dropped that subject as they did all other legislation on internal 
affairs. But as the war continued, these subjects could no longer 
be left unsettled. By the end of 1 9 1 5 the five years, which was the 
longest period, according to the Parliament Act of 1 9 1 1 , that any 
parliament could last, was drawing to its close, and yet it was felt 
to be undesirable to hold a new election in war time or under the 
unsatisfactory old conditions made more irregular by the occur- 
rences of the war. And yet the Coalition ministry was not willing 
to introduce any thoroughgoing reform bill. The matter was post- 
poned by extending the life of parliament twice for eight months 
at a time — from December, 19 15, to May, 19 17. The question 
could hardly be postponed longer than this. A new plan was eventu- 
ally adopted. The prime minister asked the Speaker of the House of 
Commons, who is not supposed to belong to either party, to appoint 
a nonpartisan conference of distinguished men from all parties to 
draw up a bill which it was hoped would commend itself to all 
parties and could be passed by common consent. This actually 
happened. In May, 19 17, a bill was presented to parliament, and 
in February, 19 18, it was passed and became known as the Repre- 
sentation of the People Act. This law repealed the reform bills of 
1832, 1867, and 1884 and a large number of other laws or parts 



THE GREAT WAR 739 

of laws, and substituted for them a general system of voting and 
division of the country into representative districts much more in 
accordance with what advanced reformers had been striving to 
obtain. The conference committee had recommended the grant of 
suffrage to women, and during the debate one old opponent after 
another announced his conversion. Mr. Asquith declared that the 
part which women had taken in carrying on the war had convinced 
him that it could not have been won without them and that they 
had a right, therefore, to participate in the reconstruction of the 
country after peace was attained. Others based their support more 
on the change of legislation in the direction of education, health, 
and affairs of the home, in which women are interested even more 
than men and in the control of which they should therefore share. 
It was proposed, at the same time, that women might be elected 
and sit in parliament the same as men. 

The bill was in many ways a compromise. Its principal provi- 
sions were that every man above twenty-one who had lived for the 
last six months in a parliamentary division or had possessed busi- 
ness premises there worth ten pounds a year should have a vote 
for the parliamentary representative of that division. Every woman 
over thirty years of age with a similar qualification or who was the 
wife of a man with that qualification likewise had a vote. A person 
could vote on either his residence or his business qualification, but 
on one of them only. The various universities, however, were given 
eleven representatives in parliament, and graduates of these univer- 
sities or those who had taken their full course, either men or 
women, could vote for the representative of their university in 
addition to their other vote. Soldiers and sailors away from home 
could send their votes by proxy. The country was divided into 
electoral districts practically equal, and there were provisions for 
the payment by the government of expenses of elections, the free 
use of schoolhouses for election meetings, and the distribution of 
a certain amount of campaign literature by the post office free of 
charge. On the other hand, the amount of private election expenses 



740 ' A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

allowed was strictly limited, and the old corrupt-practices act and 
ballot act were reenacted. A strong effort was made to include 
proportional representation in the bill, but this was rejected or 
provided for only in an experimental way. The act about doubled 
the number of voters in the country and introduced (except for the 
thirty-year age requirement for women, the extra vote for university 
graduates, and a few minor limitations) practically universal and 
equal representation. 

Immediately after the passage of this act it was announced that 
parliament would be dissolved and a new election held under its 
provisions. This was done as soon as the armistice was signed, 
and the election was held in December. In the meantime the 
prime minister had issued an appeal to all parties to support by 
their votes the existing Coalition ministry, principally on the ground 
that it had taken charge of the war and should be intrusted with 
the settlement of the terms of peace and with the necessary 
reconstruction of the country after the war. 

The principal opposition to this appeal came from the Labor 
party. The great body of w r orkingmen were sore, suspicious, 
dissatisfied with the government, and determined to insist on 
changes in its policy and an improvement in social conditions. 
The agreement of 1905, by which the Labor party acted w r ith the 
Liberals and the Nationalists during the reform period before the 
war, had held during the war, even after the formation of the Coali- 
tion ministry. Several Labor party men were members of the 
ministry, and their party was even represented in the war cabinet 
after its formation in 19 16. But relations were strained in a num- 
ber of ways : the Labor ministers and members found it hard to 
work with their old Conservative opponents ; the general restless- 
ness of workingmen was reflected by their representatives in 
parliament; they were angered by the refusal of the ministry to 
allow delegates from England to go to neutral countries to meet 
other delegates in an effort to bring about peace ; and, above all, 
they had far-reaching plans for changes in government that neither 



THE GREAT WAR 74 1 

Liberals nor Conservatives would agree to. Finally, in June, 19 18, 
at a special conference the Labor party decided to break the truce 
with the Coalition ministry and in November, as soon as the war 
was over, requested members of their party to resign from the 
ministry. All did so but one, Mr. Barnes, who preferred to break 
with his party and stay in the government. 

In the meantime the Labor party had drawn up and published 
a party platform which attracted much attention. It was entitled 
" Labor and the New Social Order " and made a special appeal to 
all workers " both by hand and by brain " and to the new women 
voters as well as to men. It was a general plan for a great number 
of far-reaching reforms, based on the declaration that many old 
customs, such as competition, capitalism, and militarism, are dying 
out and that it is therefore necessary to build up a new kind of 
social and business world in their place. It is a combination of the 
old plans of the Chartists, trade-unionists, cooperators, and social- 
ists with the general reforms characteristic of the modern period. 

When the election was held in December, 19 18, it was found 
that both the Liberal and Conservative parties were divided. Far 
the greater part of the Conservatives and somewhat more than 
half of the Liberals voted for Lloyd George and the Coalition minis- 
try, giving them a majority of more than two hundred over all oppo^ 
nents. The Labor party was the next in number, obtaining fifty-nine 
members. This was fewer than had been anticipated, but on 
account of the split in the other parties they became the principal 
minority, or opposition, party. The practical disappearance of the 
Irish Nationalist party has already been described. The non-Coalition 
members of the Conservative and Liberal parties became for the 
time insignificant as a political body. There was much dissatis- 
faction with the results of the election. Only about half of those 
who had the franchise voted and the minority parties calculated that 
if proportional representation had been in existence they would 
have elected many more of their candidates. Even the victorious 
ministry was unable to carry out many of its preelection promises. 



742 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

The necessary absence of the prime minister and several of his 
colleagues at Paris during the long period of negotiations for the 
peace also made it difficult to carry on the business of parliament. 

In June, 19 19, the prime minister, Lloyd George, reappeared in 
parliament, presented the peace treaty, explained its provisions, and 
described the negotiations by which it had been obtained. He was 
received with a great ovation, notwithstanding his many adversaries, 
but the real work of the first parliament under the latest of the 
reform bills had still to be begun. 

660. Changes in Industrial Life, 1914-1919. — Although the 
outbreak of the war brought to a close for the time the series of 
laws for social and industrial change that had been introduced dur- 
ing the years between 1906 and 19 14, 1 many influences of the war 
brought the condition and opinions of the mass of the people into 
greater and greater prominence. The need for more workers in 
the industries making munitions and other requirements for the 
war brought vast numbers of women and unskilled laborers, who 
could not conform to trade-union rules and were not paid union 
wages, into these industries ; and the leaders of the old unions saw 
their slowly built-up system of protection to the standards of life 
in danger of being destroyed. Yet the need for extra labor was 
overwhelming. Therefore in March, 19 15, a meeting was held be- 
tween the prime minister and the officers of thirty-five of the trade 
unions, at which it was agreed that trade-union rules should be 
suspended till the war was over but should then be reestablished ; 
and that no strikes should be entered upon, but that the unions must 
be represented in all arbitrations or decisions concerning wages, 
hours, and similar questions. By the end of 191 7 there were about 
a million women engaged in munitions work, night work was almost 
universal, and skilled workmen were regularly taking charge of 
large groups of unskilled and non-union workers. 

There were during the next three years many embittered dis- 
putes between workmen and employers and workmen and the 
1 See pp. 682-690, 701-707. 



THE GREAT WAR 743 

government, as prices rose higher in proportion than wages, as the 
burdens of all, due to the war, became heavier, and as a strong party 
among the organized workingmen strove to force the ministry to 
make a more explicit and liberal statement of the objects for which 
the war was being fought. Several serious strikes were threatened, 
mostly against the orders of the union leaders or in those trades 
that had not entered into the agreement of March, 19 15. At the 
same time the government was being forced by circumstances to 
take control of one branch after another of industrial life. The 
control of iron and other works producing ammunition has already 
been mentioned. The railways, coal mines, shipping, wool, leather, 
food importation, production, and distribution were successively 
either taken into the possession of the government or placed under 
its strict regulation. 

Early in the war the government recognized that these and other 
changes in progress were so extensive that when the war closed, 
or perhaps even before, there would have to be much reorganiza- 
tion, and that this should be provided for beforehand. Therefore, 
a ministry of reconstruction was created, as a ministry of munitions 
had already been, and as several other new ministries were formed 
before the war was over. Among the various committees appointed 
by the minister of reconstruction was one on the relations between 
employers and employed, of which a member of parliament named 
Whitley was chairman. At the recommendation of this committee, 
made in the spring of 19 17 and approved shortly afterward by the 
prime minister and cabinet, joint industrial councils, or " Whitley 
councils," as they are commonly called, were introduced into vari- 
ous industries. These are an extension of the Trade Boards estab- 
lished in 1909, 1 but they have far more extensive powers. They are 
national boards whose members are elected one half by the organ- 
ization of employers in an industry, one half by the trade union in 
that industry. The board meets frequently and determines a num- 
ber of questions of common interest to the employer and employees, 

1 See p. 687. 



744 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

such as hours, piecework rates, methods of settlement of disputes, 
improvement of processes. Within two years some forty trades 
voluntarily introduced national boards or councils of this kind, and 
joint management in such industries as baking, building, pottery, 
weaving, the manufacture of chemicals, and others made consider- 
able progress. In a number of industries, in addition to these 
national joint councils, there are district councils in each part of 
the country and joint committees in each workshop. 

After the close of the war this movement toward industrial 
democracy was carried a step further. The restlessness among 
the workingmen took the form in February, 19 19, of a series of 
demands from the trade unions for increased wages and improved 
working conditions. The " Triple Alliance " — the Miners' Federa- 
tion, with 800,000 members, the Transport Workers' Union, with 
500,000 members, and the National Union of Railway Men, 
with 450,000 members — have an agreement by which they act 
together in many cases, and have a common executive committee 
and chairman. These three unions, with their million and three- 
quarters members, threatened a strike which would have brought 
all industry to a stop unless their demands for higher wages, 
shorter hours, a voice in the control of the railroads, and the im- 
mediate nationalization of coal and iron mines, the railways, and 
canals were agreed to. Parliament appointed a special committee 
of investigation, and in April, 19 19, a conference of representa- 
tive employers and trade-union leaders was called by the ministry 
to consider means of avoiding this particular struggle and similar 
contests in the future. As a result a permanent National Indus- 
trial Council was established, consisting of two hundred members 
elected by employers' organizations and two hundred elected by 
trade unions. This was a body similar to the Whitley' councils 
except that it represented all forms of industry and not one particular 
trade. The government agreed to call this body together, provide 
it with officers, and give it access to any information it needed. 
The ministry also promised to consult the National Industrial 



THE GREAT WAR 745 

Council on all matters of an industrial nature to be brought up 
in parliament. The Council has power to issue general statements 
from time to time on industrial matters for the guidance of public 
opinion. It is, therefore, in a sense a sub-parliament for industrial 
affairs. In these ways organized workingmen have obtained since 
the outbreak of the war a very considerable share in the control 
not only of the conditions of their own labor but of general national 
policy so far as it is concerned with industrial matters. 

661. Summary of the Period, 1905-1919. — The early part of 
this period, from 1906 to 19 12, was marked by a series of reforms 
as extensive as those carried under Gladstone's prime-ministership 
between 1868 and 1872, but much more closely connected with 
the condition of workingmen and the masses of the people. The 
passage of these laws was made possible by the combination for 
the purpose of the Liberal, Labor, and Home Rule parties. During 
the same period, and partly as a result of this legislation, the taxa- 
tion system of England has been transformed and two further steps 
have been taken in the complete democratization of the British 
government — the Parliament Act of 1 9 1 1 and the Representation 
of the People Act of 19 18. The sudden outbreak of the Great War 
in 1 9 1 4 forced England to transform herself from a peaceful manu- 
facturing and trading nation, principally occupied with internal 
interests, to a military country bending every energy and straining 
every nerve to defend herself and to help bring about the downfall 
of her great antagonist. In doing this she performed a marvelous 
work. Her national energy, her adaptability, her perseverance, her 
endurance, her wealth and her willingness to devote it to the great 
object, the fighting ability of her hastily trained and equipped army, 
the steadfastness of her powerful navy, and a score of other great 
qualities and achievements made her one of the principal factors, if 
not the greatest factor, in the defeat of Germany and her allies. 

In Great Britain, even more perhaps than in other modern coun- 
tries, the greatest question of recent times has been the Labor 
question. Her highly organized trade-unions, her strong political 



746 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

Labor party, and their close union with men of the more intellec- 
tual classes have given an influence to organized workingmen 
during the last few years that few if any classes or parties have 
ever had before. During the last election they advocated a con- 
structive policy which has deeply influenced the ideas of other 
parties as well as their own, and some points of this policy have 
already been carried out, such as the admission of the employees 
into the partial management of the businesses in which they are 
engaged and the sharing of workingmen as such in the general 
economic policy of the government. These are steps toward the 
attainment of industrial as well as political democracy. 

Great Britain, like all other countries, is facing a new world as a 
result of the Great War, yet, notwithstanding her many and serious 
troubles, she stands, politically as well as economically, stronger 
to meet the difficulties of the immediate future than she has at 
many crises in the past, and she is in many ways better equipped 
for reorganization and progress than any other European country. 



SOCIAL CHANGES 747 

General Reading. — It is always difficult to find the facts of very recent 
history. The latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica brought many 
matters down to 19 10, and the Britannica Year Book, issued in 19 13 and 
written largely by the same contributors, is a very useful review of events 
of the years 191 1 and 1912. The New International Encyclopedia, a new 
edition of which is now in progress, brings most of its entries down to a 
very recent date. The A T ew International Year Book, which has appeared 
annually since 1907, gives an annual summary of occurrences of great value 
and fullness. More purely political events are described in the Annual 
Register, which has been published yearly for more than a century and a 
half. HazelTs Annual is especially devoted to matters of social and eco- 
nomic interest. There are weekly summaries of occurrences in the Nation, 
the London Times, and many other journals. Valuable summaries and 
discussions of recent occurrences will frequently be found in the current 
numbers of the monthly or quarterly journals. Gretton, R. H., A Modern 
History of the English People, 2 vols., 1913, covers the period 1880-1910. 
Gooch, G. P., History of Our Time (1885-1911), is a small volume in the 
Home University Library, published in 191 2. Alden, Percy, Democratic 
England, 191 2, is a popular account. Fawcett, Millicent G, A History 
of 'Women 's Suffrage, a small but excellent book. Ogg, F. A., Social Progress 
in Contemporary Eitrope, contains some valuable information, and excellent 
bibliographical lists on most of the subjects taken up in this chapter. 
Brooks, J. G., The Social Unrest, 1909. Arnold-Foster, H. O., English 
Socialism of To-day, 1908, is valuable. Cross, J. B., The Essentials of 
Socialism, 191 2, although a small book, gives valuable outlines and a full list 
of books on socialism. The circumstances of the outbreak of the present 
war are well described in The American Year Book for 1914, and its events 
are detailed in the London Times' History of the War. A moderate state- 
ment of the British side, with many documents, is Why we are at War, 
Great Britain's Case, by Members of the Oxford University Faculty 
of Modern History. Among the many books giving the German side of 
the case, one of the most moderate and suggestive is What Germaiiy Wants, 
by Edmund von Mach. 

Contemporary Sources. — Hayes, Carlton, British Social Politics, is a 
collection of documents illustrating many of the reforms described in this 
chapter. The documents have valuable introductions. The Minority Re- 
port on the Poor Law is separately published. Ensor, R. C. K., Modem 
Socialism, 1904, is a collection of documents with extracts from the writings 
of leading socialists. The Fabian Society, Fabian Essays in Socialism. 
All the documents concerning the outbreak of the great war and the early 



748 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

months of its continuance are to be found most conveniently in Price, M. P., 
The Diplomatic Histoiy of the War, London, 191 5. This is necessarily a 
somewhat large book ; the four most important documents are printed in 
smaller and more convenient form as No. 83 of the monthly publications 
of the American Association for International Conciliation, New York, 
October, 1914. 

Poetry and Fiction. — Songs and Sonnets for England in War Time, 
published by John Lane, London, 191 5, contains about fifty poems called 
forth by the present war. Wells, H. G., Tono-Bungay, gives a glimpse of 
changes and proposed changes in modern English life, and many other 
stories by the same writer are suitable. Snaith, J. C, Broke of Covenden, 
is a fine study of the contrast between the old and the new. Bennett, 
Arnold, The Old Wives' Tale and Clay hanger, give an insight into ordi- 
nary English life. Hewlett, Maurice, Rest-Harrow, Halfway House, and 
Open Country, describe rural England and an interesting man. Many of 
the stories of George Moore and Joseph Conrad are good reading and 
belong to this time. Galsworthy, John, Strife, is a drama based on 
modern labor struggles. Robins, Elizabeth, The Convert, is a suffrage 
story. Shaw, George Bernard, fohn Bull's Other Island, especially the 
Preface, deals with home rule. The plays of Synge, as well as others by 
Shaw, belong to this period. Poetry characteristic of this time has been 
written by Gibson, W. AY. ; Noyes, Alfred; and Phillips, Stephen. 

Special Topics. — (1) International Arbitration, Encyclopedia Britanuica, 
Vol. II, pp. 327-331, and Vol. X, pp. 4-17 ; (2) Airships, ibid., Vol. I, 
pp. 260-270; (3) Anarchism, ibid., Vol. I, pp. 914-918 ; (4) State Insurance 
against Sickness, Alden, Democratic England, pp. 122-142 ; (5) Minimum 
Wages, ibid., pp. 62-86 ; (6) Pacifism, Jane Addams, A T ewer Ideals of Peace; 
(7) Insurance against Unemployment, Beauchamp, AY., Westminster Re- 
view, March, 191 1 ; (8) The National Insurance Act, Porritt, E., Political 
Science Quarterly, June, 191 2; (9) The Progress of Surgery, Keen, W. W., 
in Wallace, A. R., The Progress of the Centuiy, pp. 232-261 ; (10) The 
Theory of Evolution, ibid., pp. 3-29. 



INDEX 



in 



Bloody Assizes, 499 

B5 a di ce'a, 21 

Boer (boor) War, 674 

Boers (boors), 673 

Bologna (bolSn'ya), University of, 

Boniface of Savoy, 205 

" Bonnie Dundee," 518 

Bordeaux (bor do'), defeat of Eng- 
lish at, 269 

Boroughs, 72, 195, 598, 631 

Boston Massacre, 589 

Bosworth, battle of, 274 

Botany Bay, 572, 669 

Bows used in archery, 97, 235, 236 

Boyne, battle of the, 516 

Bracton, 191 

Braddock, General, 561 

Bradshaw, 468 

Breda (bra da'), Declaration of, 466 

Bretigny (bre ten'ye), Peace of, 241, 
246 

Bright, John, 640, 665 

Bristol, 5 

Britain, early inhabitants of, 2 ; first 
knowledge of, 14 ; organized as a 
Roman province, 20, 22 ; under 
Roman rule, 23 ; decay of, 30 ; 
after withdrawal of the Romans, 
33 ; attacked by Picts and Scots, 
36; conquered by Angles and 
Saxons, 36 

British Isles, geography of, 1 ; size 
of, 3 

Britons, tribes of, 17; wars among, 
17; customs of, 17; religion of, 
18; insurrections of, 21 

Brougham (broom), Lord, 633 

Bruce, Robert, 222 

Bruce, Robert, the younger, 225 

Bru nan burh', battle of, 73 

Brythons, 16 

Buckingham, George Villiers (vil'- 
yers), duke of, 395, 397, 413, 416 

Bunyan, John, 492 

Burgoyne, General, 592 

Burial mounds, 12 

Burke, Edmund, 591, 604 

Burleigh (bur'ly), 331 

Bur'ma, 651 

Burns, John, 682 



Bute, 577 

Buxton, Sydney, 6S2 

Ca bar, the, 483, 526 

Cabinet government, development 
of, 526 

Cab'ot, John, 285 

Ca/diz, destruction of ships at, 364 ; 
expedition against, under Charles 
I, 412 

Caedmon (kad'mon), 53 

Caen (can), 90 

Caerleon (kar le'on), 23 

Caesar, Julius, invades Britain, 14 

Calais (cala'), 237, 292, 323 

Cal cut'ta, Black Hole of, 569 

Caledonia, 22, 48 

Caledonians, 16, 31 

Calendar, reform of the, 560 

Cambridge, 188, 195 

Camden, 376 

Campbell(cam / el)-Bannerman, 681 

Canada, 559, 564, 667-669 

Canning, George, 619 

Canon law, 158 

Canons, 108; of cathedrals, 156 

Canterbury, 45 ; cathedral of, 
founded, 46 ; archbishopric of, 
founded, 50; election of arch- 
bishop of, 175 . 

Canute. See Cnut 

Cape Colony, 672, 675 

Cape of Good Hope, 672 

Cape St. Vincent, victory off, 611 

Ca rac'ta cus, 20, 21 

Cardinals, 206 

Carrying trade, 456 

Carson, Sir Edward, 710 

Carter et, Lord, 562 

Car thu'sians, 194 

Cartwright, Thomas, 347 

Castle, the mediaeval, 132 

Castles of William the Conqueror, 

97,9S 

Cathedrals, 142, 156, 187, 195; build- 
ing of, after the Norman Con- 
quest, 105 

Catherine of Aragon, 279, 290, 

2 93 
Catherine Howard, 309 
Catherine Parr, 309 



IV 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Catholic Association, 621 

< avaliers, 443 

( 'awn pore', 650 

Caxton, William, 288 

Cecil (ses'il), Sir Robert, 379 

Cecil (ses'il). Sir William, 331 

Celtic (sel'tik) races, 16, 48 

Celtic (sel'tik) tribes, location of, 

Celts (selts) in Britain, 32 

Ceorls (karls), 42, 82 

Cerdic (ser'dik), 38, 56, 121 

Ceylon (se Ion'), 666 

Chalk cliffs, 36 

Chamberlain, Joseph, 665, 677 

Chandernagore (chun der na gor'), 
570 

Channel freebooters, 360 

Chantries, foundation of, 272 ; dis- 
solution of, 312 

Chapter, the cathedral, 157 

Charles I, marries Henrietta Maria, 
396 ; accession of, 410 ; character 
of, 411; foreign wars of, 411; 
quarrels of, with parliament, 413 ; 
personal government of, 4 j8; tries 
to coerce the Scotch Presbyte- 
rians, 432 ; summons parliament, 
433 ; attempts to seize the five 
members, 440; and militia, 441; 
Civil War and, 442 ; trial and 
execution of, 451 

Charles II, 453 ; Ireland and Scot- 
land declare for, 455 ; accession 
of, 466 ; action of parliament 
under, 467 ; and Dutch war, 478, 
481 ; and France, 480, 482 ; life 
in reign of, 496 ; death of, 498 

Charles Edward, the Young Pre- 
tender, 549 

Charles the Great, influence of, on 
Egbert, 56 

Charles V of Spain, 292, 294 

Charter, of Henry I,i 20 ; of Stephen, 
129; the Great, 180; of towns, 197, 
489, 506; the People's, 636 

Chartism, 635 

Chat'ham, Lord, 591, 595 

Chaucer (chaw'ser), Geoffrey, 256, 
289 

Chevalier (shev a ler'), the, 549 



Childe, 83 

Chippenham (chip'nam), Treaty of, 

63 

Chivalry, 239, 240 

Christian Socialists, 705 

Christianity, in Roman Britain, 30 ; 
reintroduction of, 44, 47 ; spread 
of, 47 

Church, Christian, in Roman Brit- 
ain, 30 ; mission of Augustine to 
reintroduce, 44 ; mission of Aidan 
to reintroduce, 47 ; dispute be- 
tween Roman and Celtic branches, 
48 ; organization of, 49 ; influence 
of, on Danes, 64; under Dunstan, 
78; under William I, 104; under 
William II, 117 ; under Henry I, 
122; under Henry II, 156-161 ; 
Wycliffe's criticisms of the, 251 ; 
changes in, introduced by Henry 
VIII, 296-308 ; policy of Mary 
Tudor towards, 321-325 ; attitude 
of Elizabeth towards, 332-335 ; 
Puritanism in the, 334, 347, 386, 
416, 438; presbyterianism and 
independency in the, 445; at- 
tempted reorganization of the, 
469 ; Dissenters from the organi- 
zation of the, 470 

Church courts, 157 

Churchill, Winston, 682 

Cistercians, 159, 194 

Cities, 195, 631, 664 

Civilization, early, 13; Celtic, 17; 
Roman, 25-30; decay of, 44 ; im- 
provement of, 66 ; effect of Nor- 
man Conquest on, 100; recent 
advance in, 720 

Clar'en don, Constitutions of, 162, 
165 

Clar'en don, Edward Hyde, earl of, 
482 

Clar'en don Code, 471 

Clarkson, 609 

Claudius, invasion by, 20 

Clemens Maximus, 32 

Clergy, 49, 156 

Cliffs, 4, 36 

Clive, Robert, 569 

Close boroughs, 598 

Cluniacs, 159, 194 



INDEX 



Cnut (knut), king of England, 86; 
character of rule of, 87 ; earldoms 
of, 87 ; successors of, 87 

Coal mines, location of, 10; in- 
creased product of, 582 ; minimum 
wage boards in, 688; strikes in, 702 

Cor/bett, William, 617 

Cob'den, Richard, 640 

Coffee introduced, 496 

Coinage, debasement of, 318; resto- 
ration of, under Elizabeth, 337 

Coins, earliest in Britain, 1 7 ; Roman, 
28 

Col'ches ter, 20 

Col'et, John, 287, 288 

Colonies, attempted in Newfound- 
land, 354; Virginia, 354, 403; 
Plymouth, 405 ; Massachusetts 
Bay, 405 ; West Indies, 405 ; Nova 
Scotia, 559; new, in America, 
587 ; English seizure of French, 
612 ; summary of, 666 

C5 lum'ba, 48 

Columbus, 285 

Committee of both kingdoms, 444 

Common law, 153 t^^ 

Commonwealth, the, 453 

Commonwealth of Australia, 672 

Compurgation, 80 

Conciliation Act of 1906, 702 

Conciliation bills for women's suf- 
frage, 700 

Confirmation of the charters, 215 

Conservative party, 633, 657, 661, 
681 

Constitutional Society, 603 

Continental System, 613 

Conventicles, 470 

Convocation, 390 

Cook, Captain James, 572 

Cope, Sir John, 549 

Corn-Law League, 639 

Corn Laws, abolition of, 641 

Corn'wall, 6 

Corn wal'lis, Lord, 593 

Corporation, definition of, 471 

Corporation Act, 471 

Cotters, 200 

Council of the North, 427 ; abolition 
of, 437 

Councils of the Norman kings, 109 



Count of the Saxon Shore, 31 

Counter reformation, 347 

County councils, 664 

Court, of Star Chamber, 281, 291, 
421, 437; of High Commission, 
334, 421, 437, 501 ; of Marches of 
Wales, 437 ; High, of Justice, 451 ; 
Ecclesiastical Commission, 501, 
5°3> 5o6 

Courts, under Henry I, 127 ; under 
Henry II, 146, 153; of church, 
157, 162; manor, 201. See Curia 
regis and Exchequer 

Cov'er dale's Bible, 307 

Craft gilds, 198 

Cran'mer, Archbishop, 308, 310, 325 

Crecy (cra'se), battle of, 234, 236 

Cri rae'an War, 646 

Cromwell, Oliver, present at Long 
Parliament, 434 ; leader of Round- 
heads, 444 ; organizes the New 
Model army, 447 ; at Naseby, 448 ; 
conquers Ireland and Scotland, 
455 ; expels Long Parliament, 
457 ; character of, 458 ; the Pro- 
tector, 460 ; death of, 463 

Cromwell, Richard, 463 

Cromwell, Thomas, 300, 307 

Crusade, First, 171 ; Third, 171 ; in- 
fluence of, 173 ; Edward I partici- 
pates in, 209 

Crystal Palace, 642 

Cul lo'den Moor, battle of, 550 

Cum'nor Hall, 345 

Cu'no be line, 17 

Curfew, no 

Curia regis, 126-128, 147, 148 

Cymbeline (sim'be lin), 17 

Cyprus (srprus), island of, 662 

Danby, earl of, 485 
Danegeld (dan'geld), 86, 109, 115 
Danelaw (dan'law), 62, 63, 65, 69, 88 
Danes, first incursions of, 59 ; rav- 
ages of, 61, 65; settlements of, 
62 ; as traders, 63 ; peace of Alfred 
with, 63 ; as founders of cities, 64; 
Five Boroughs of, 64 ; influence 
of Christianity on, 64 ; new in- 
vasions by, 85 
Danish axes, 60, 61 



VI 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Darnley, 343 

Davis, John, 355 

Davison executes death warrant of 

Mary Queen of Scots, 362, 363 
Dean of chapter, 157 
Dec'can, 565 

Declaration of Rights, 509 
Declaration of Sports, 424 
Declarations of Indulgence, of 

Charles II, 472; of James II, 503 
De ere" tit m, 158 
De foe', 493 
De I'ra, 37 

Delhi (del'e), 565, 650 
Demesne (de men'), 201 
Democracy in England, 664, 678 
Denmark, foundation of, 85 
Det'ting en, battle of, 558 
Dev'on, 6 

Dispensing power, 472, 501 
Dis rae'li, Benjamin, earl of Beac- 

onsfield (bek'ons field), 657, 658, 

661, 662 
Dissenters, 470, 504, 541 
Distraint of knighthood, 203, 424 
Divine right of kings, 388 
Domesday Book, in, 196 
Do min'i cans, 194 
Dominion of Canada, 669 
Donjon, 132 

Dooms, Anglo-Saxon, 66 
Dover, Strait of, 2 
Dover, Treaty of, 481 
Drake, Francis, 358, 364, 367 
Druids, 18, 21, 42 
Dryden, 490, 493 
Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester, 

345 
Dun bar', battle of, 455 
Dun'kirk, 480 
Dun'stan, 76, 77 
Dupleix (du plaks'), 567 
Duquesne (du kan'), Fort, 564 
Dur bar', 712 
Durham (dur'am), 5 
Dutch war of the commonwealth, 456 
Dutch wars under Charles II, 479, 

481 

Eal'dor man, 37, 79, 85 
Earl, 79, 104 



Earldoms, construction of great, 85 

East India Company, 354, 405, 568, 
649, 651 

Easter, different customs concern- 

_ ing, 48 

E bor'a cum, 23 

Edgar ^Etheling (eth'el ing), 96, 97 

Edgar the Peaceful, 71 

Edgehill, battle of, 443 

Edinburgh (ed'nburo), foundation 
of, 54 

Edmund, 61 

Edward, son of Alfred, 69 

Edward the Confessor, 87, 89 

Edward I, 209-226 ; wins Evesham, 
209 ; on crusade, 209 ; accession 
of, 209 ; love of, for England, 210 ; 
character of, 213 ; creates full par- 
liament, 213; great statutes of, 
215; expels Jews, 216; invades 
Wales, 219; conquers Scotland, 
224; death of, 225 

Edward II, 225, 227 

Edward III, 227; claim of, to French 
throne, 231; makes war on France, 
233 

Edward IV, accession of, 271 ; death 
of, 272 

Edward V, murder of, 274 

Edward VI, birth of, 308 ; accession 
of, 310; death of, 320 

Edward VII, accession of, 677 

Edwin, earl of Mercia, 95 

Edwin of Deira, 46, 54 

Egbert, 56, 59, 64 

Eikon Basilike (T'kon ba sil'i ke), 453 

Ei kon oklas'tes, 491 

Eleanor of Aquitaine, 146 

Eleanor of Provence, 204 

Eliot, Sir John, 414, 418, 420 

Elizabeth Tudor, queen, birth of, 
308 ; accession of, 330 ; religious 
policy of, 332 ; foreign policy of, 
335; pauperism under, 338 ; court 
of, 339 ; imprisons Mary Queen of 
Scots, 345 ; dallies with marriage 
plans, 346, 351 ; excommunicated, 
349; plots against, 350, 361 ; and 
war with Spain, 363 ; poor law of, 
367 ; life under, 369 ; closing years 
of, 379 ; greatness of, 380 



INDEX 



vn 



Elizabeth of York, 274, 278 

Emma, mother of Edward the Con- 
fessor, 89 

Employers' Liability Acts, 682 

England, isolation of, 2 ; size of, 3 ; 
situation of, 3 ; surface of, 5 ; cli- 
mate of, 6 ; forests of, 7 ; natural 
products of, 10 

Engle, 40 n. 

English on the sea, 361 

English expeditions to France, 233, 
245, 267, 292, 532, 538, 562, 604, 
718 

Eorls (arls), 42, 82 

Episcopacy, 518 ; in Scotland, 431 

E ras'mus, 286 

Kr'mine Street, 43 

Essex, Robert Devereux (dev'er 00), 
earl of, 379 

Eth'el bert of Kent, 45 ; code of, 66 

Etheling, 83, 96, 97 

Ethelred II, the Unready, 85, 86, 
89 

Evangelical clergy, 555 

Ev'esham, battle of, 209 

Exchequer, 127, 128, 426 

Exclusion bills, 474, 476 

Excommunication, 177 

Fa'bi an Society, 705 

Factories in India, 567 

Factory system, 579 

Fairfax, 448, 454 

Fairs, 199 

Falaise (falaz'), Treaty of, 167 

Falkland (fawk'land), 443 

Familists, 460 

Fawkes (fawks), Guy, 392 

Federal Council for Australia, 672 

Fens, 8 

Feudal dependence of England on 

pope, 179 
Feudal dues, 135, 172 
Feudal land tenure, 133 
Feudal taxation, 155 
Feudal tenures, abolition of, 468 
'eudal terms, definitions ot, 133^^ 
'Feudalism, under William the < 'on 

[ueror, 103/under Stephen, 133- 

r 37 ; personal relations of, 136; 

political powers given by, 136; in 



Saxon period, 137 ; effect of Nor- 
man Conquest on, 138 ; peculiari- 
ties of, in England, 138 

Fief (fef), 133 

Field of the Cloth of Gold, 292 

Field preaching, 553 

Fire in London, 493 

Fisher, Bishop, execution of, 303 

Five Boroughs, 64 

Flam'bard, Ralph, 119, 120, 126 

Flanders, English and French inter- 
ests in, 231 

Flemish trade with England, 273 

Florence of Worcester, 141 

Folk-right, 80, 81 

Fontenoy (font nwa'), battle of, 559 

Fontevrault (font e vro'), 170 

Forest Charter, 216 

Forest laws, 109 

Forests and swamps, 7, 9 

Forests under Charles I, 425 

Fort Duquesne (du kan'), 561 

Fosse-way, 44 

Foth'er in gay Castle, 362 

Fox, Charles James, 591, 604, 610 

France, war with, under Charles I, 
412 

Franchise, extension of the, 628, 659, 
663, 695 

Francis of Assisi (as se'ze), 194 

Francis I of France, 292 

Fran cis'cans, 194 

Free trade, 641 

Freemen on the manors, 202 

French and Indian War, 564 

French Revolution, 602 

Friars, 194 

Friends of the People, 603 

Frisians, 36 

Frobisher, Martin, 355 

Fyrd (fird), 60, 65, 79, 154 

Ga'els, 16 

Garter, Order of the, 241 

Geneva award, 655 

Geoffrey (jef'fre), count of Anjou, 
129, 145, 174 

Geoffrey, duke of Brittany, 168 

Geoffrey of Monmouth, 141 

George I, accession of, 542 ; govern- 
ment of, 547 



Vlll 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



/ 



George II, accession of, 548 ; death 
of, 576 

George III, accession of, 576; dis- 
misses Pitt, 577 ; American policy 
of, 589 ; close of personal rule of, 
595 ; death of, 623 

George IV, 623 

George V, 711 

George, prince of Denmark, hus- 
band of Queen Anne, 532 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 354 

Gild merchant, 198 

Gilds, religious, 312 

Gir al'dus Cam bren'sis, 171 

Gladstone, William Ewart, enters 
House of Commons, 656; changes 
views, 656; becomes Prime Min- 
ister, 657 ; reform administration 
of, 659; resigns, 661 ; again prime 
minister, 662 ; defeated on Home 
Rule Bill, 665 ; prime minister in 
1892, 665 ; death of, 666 

Glastonbury, 76 

Glen coe', massacre of, 519 

Glen dow'er, 265 

Gloucester (glos'ter) Cathedral, 
cloisters of, 276 

Godwin, 90, 92 

Goidels, 16 

Good Hope, discovery of the route 
around Cape of, 285 

Gordon, Lord George, 600 

Gos'nold, Bartholomew, 355 

Grand Alliance, 531 

Grand Remonstrance, 437 

Gratian (gra'shan), 158 

G rat' tan, Henry, 594 

Great Assize, 149 

Greek, study of, in England, 52 

Greenwich (gren'ich) Hospital, 522 

Gregory VII, 107 

Gregory and the English slaves at 
Rome, 44 

Gren'ville, Sir Richard, 354- 

Grey, Earl, 624, 633 

Grey, Sir Edward, 682, 700, 713 

Grocyn (gro'sin), 287 

Grosseteste (grossest), Robert, 191 

Guienne (ge en'), 146 

Guineas, 479 

Gulf Stream, 7 



Gunpowder Plot, 391 
Guthrum (goo'throom), 63 

Habeas corpus, 492 

Ha'dri an, the monk, 52 

Hadrian's wall, 25 

Hak'Iuyt's Voyages, 376 

Hampden, John, 426, 443 

Hampton Court Conference, 389 

Han se at'ic traders, 273 

Harbors, 4 

Harold Hard'ra da, 94 

Harold, son of Cnut, 87 

Harold, son of Godwin, 90-92 ; ac- 
knowledged king by Edward, 93; 
at Stamford Bridge, 95 ; defeated 
and killed at Hastings, 96 

Har'tha cnut, 87 

Hastings, battle of, 95 

Hastings, Warren, 649 

Hawkins, John, voyages of, 355 

Hengist (heng'gist) and Horsa, 37 

Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, 
396, 480 

Henry I, accession of, 119; charter of, 
120; marriage of, 1 20 ; character 
of , 1 2 1 ; conquers Normandy, 121; 
and church, 122; struggle of, with 
barons, 124; administration of, 125 

Henry II, accession of, 140, 145 ; 
character of, 145; dominions of, 
146; administration of, 148-155; 
church under, 1 56-161; quarrel 
with Becket, 1 61-166; new revolt 
against, 166; wars with Scotland, 
Wales, and Ireland, 167 ; last 
years of, 168 

Henry III, accession of, 186; char- 
acter of, 1S6; favorites of, 204; 
quarrels with pope, 205, 207 ; and 
barons, 208 ; death of, 209 

Henry IV, accession of, 259; parlia- 
ment under, 264 ; wars of, 265 

Henry V, 267, 268 

Henry VI, accession of, 268 ; death 
of, 272 

Henry VII, accession of, 274; title 
of, 278 ; struggle of, for throne, 
279 ; children of, 279 ; character 
of, 280 ; government of, 281 ; pol 
icy of, 284 ; death of, 289 



INDEX 



IX 



Henry VIII, 279 ; accession of, 289 ; 
divorce question of, 293 ; excom- 
municated, 303 ; marries Anne 
Boleyn, 308 ; death of, 309 

Henry of Huntingdon, 141 

Henry, son of Henry II, 167, 170 

Henry, son of James I, 394 

Hep'tar chy, 39 

Heraldry, 239 

Her'e berht, 60 

Her'e f5rd Cathedral, 142 

Heresy, definition of, 252 

Her'e ward, 98 

Hertford, synod of, 50 

Highland regiments, 563 

Hil'de brand, Pope, 107 

Hill, Rowland, 631 

Hin'doo, 565 

Holmby (hom'by) House, 449 

Holyrood palace, 341 

Honorius, 32 

Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 376 

Huth'am, Sir John, 442 

Hotspur, 266 

House of Commons, origin of, 214; 
petitions James I, 409 ; impeaches 
Buckingham, 413 ; Pride's Purge 
in the, 451 ; abolishes House of 
Lords, 454; dictates to House of 
Lords, 693 

House of Lords, origin of, 214; 
abolition of, 454,; coercion of, 
541, 626; reform of, 693 

Housecarls, 87, 95 

Howard, Lord, of Effingham, 364 

Howel, 70 

Hudson, Henry, 355 

Huguenots (hu'ge nots), 412 

Humanism in England, 287 

Hundred mote, 80 

Hundred Years' War, beginning of, 
231, 233; events of, 233-242; re- 
newal of, 246 ; under Henry V, 
267 

Hundreds, 80 

I ce'ni, 2 1 

Icknield (ik'neld)-way, 44 
Ignatius (igna'shus), L5 yo'la, 348 
Impeachments, 247, 400, 413, 435, 
483, 524, 649 



Imperial federation, 676, 712 

Imperial policy, 661 

Inclosures, 314, 582 

Independence, Declaration of 
American, 588 

Independent Labor Party, 680 

Independents, 447, 450 

India, English settlements in, 565 ; 
titles of rulers in, 566; Clive in. 
569; after Clive, 649; rebellion 
in, 650; empire of, 651 

Industrial revolution, 578 

Innocent III, quarrels with John, 
176; and the king of France, 205 

Instrument of government, 460 

Interdict of 1208-1213, 177 

Investiture, struggle under William 
Rufus, 118; strife about, 123 

I 5'na, 49 

Ireland, conquest of, 167 ; under 
Henry VII and Henry VIII, 304; 
settlement of English and Scotch 
in, 405 ; under Wentworth, 427 ; 
rebellion in, 439 ; conquered by 
Cromwell, 455 ; resists William 
III, 517; in eighteenth century, 
537 ; home rule in, 593, 664 ; revo- 
lution in, 606; union of, with Eng- 
land, 606 ; in nineteenth century, 
608 ; proposed repeal of union 
with, 637 ; famine in, 638 ; emi- 
gration from, 639 ; land law of 
1870 for, 660 

Ire'ton, 455, 468 

Iron, 10, 582 

" Ironsides," 445 

Italian churchmen in England, 207 

Jacobins (jac'o bins), English, 605 

Jacobite party, 518, 523, 542, 543 

Jamaica, capture of, 462 

James I, birth of, 343 ; accession 
of, 383 ; character of, 384 ; politi- 
cal theory of, 385; attitude of, 
towards Puritans, 389; attitude of, 
towards Catholics, 391 ; foreign 
policy of, 393 ; proposes Spanish 
and French marriages, 394 ; colo- 
nization under, 403 ; struggles 
with Parliament, 407 ; death of, 
410 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



James II, accession of, 498; upris- 
ing against, 499 ; tyranny of, 500 ; 
issues a Declaration of Indul- 
gence, 503 ; birth of son to, 505 ; 
flight of, 508 ; deposition of, 508 ; 
loses at Boyne, 516 

James III, the Pretender, 531, 543 

Jamestown, foundation of, 403 

Jane Grey, 319, 321 

Jane Seymour, 308 

Japan, alliance with, 716 

Jarls (yarls), 62 

Jeffreys, Chief Justice, 500 

Jenkins's Ear, War of, 557 

Jesuits, 348 

Jewries, 217 

Jews, position of, in England, 217 ; 
protected by the king, 218; ex- 
pulsion of, by Edward I, 219 ; re- 
admission of, 460 ; admission to 
parliament, 656 

Jingo policy, 662 

Joan of Arc, 268 

John, king of England, 174; loses 
continental provinces, 174; and 
the church, 175, 178 ; character of, 
178 ; acknowledges pope as suze- 
rain, 178; rebellion against, 179; 
signs the Great Charter, 180; 
tries to revoke Great Charter, 
186; death of, 186 

John of Gaunt, 246, 270 

Jonson, Ben, 377 

Judicial assizes, 148 

Junius letters, 585 

Junto, the Whig, 526 

Justices on circuit, 127 

justiciar, 125 

Jutes, 36, 38 

Keep of a castle, 132 

Kentishmen, 38 

Kiaochow (kyow'chow'), 718 

Killiecrankie, battle of, 518 

Kimberley, 673 

King-maker, the, 272 

Kings deposed : Edward II, 227 ; 

Richard II, 259 ; Henry VI, 271 ; 

Charles I, 451 ; James II, 508 
Kingsley, Charles, 705 
Kirk-a-Field, 344 



Kit's Coty House, 13, 14 
Knighthood, 239 
Knights Hospitallers, 240 
Knights Templars, 240 
Knox, John, 342 

Labor exchanges, 686 

Labor unrest, 701 

La Hogue (hog), battle of, 521 

Lake district, the, 6 

Lam'bert Sim'nel, 279 

Lancaster and York, 270 

Lan'franc, 108, 115, 116, 140, 142 

Langland, William, 255 

Langton, Stephen, 176, 180 

Language, origin of the English, 40; 
increased use of English, 255 

Lat'eran Council, 151 

Latimer, 307 

Laud, William, 420, 423, 436 

Law, poor, 368 

Laws, of Alfred, 66, 82 ; of William 
the Conqueror, 109; concerning 
paupers, 339 ; recusancy, 349. 
See also Charters, Assizes, Statutes 

Leicester (les'ter), earl of, 345 

Leicester (les'ter), town hall of, 197 

Leighton (la'ton), Alexander, 422 

Leinster (len'ster), 168 

Le'ly, Sir Peter, 495 

Lenthall (lent'al), 441 

Lewes (loo'is), battle of, 209 

Lexington, battle of, 590 

Liberal party, 633, 655, 680 

Liberal Unionists, 665, 680 

Liberty of the press, 513 

Light Brigade, charge of the, 647 

limerick, Treaty of, 517 

Linacre (lin'aker), 287 

Lincoln, 24, 25 

Lin dis fame', 47, 49, 60 

Litany in English, 308 

Literature, of early Saxons, 40, 50 ; 
under Alfred, 67 ; of tenth cen- 
tury, 73; of Norman period, 140; 
under Henry II, 170; of four- 
teenth century, 255; under Eliza- 
beth, 374; under Charles II, 490 

Liverpool, 5 

Llewelyn (loo el'in), prince of Wales, 
220 



INDEX 



XI 



Lloyd George, David, 682, 690, 700 
Local self-government, 664 
Lollards, 252-254, 325, 335 
Lords Marchers of Wales, 266 
Lords Ordainers, 227 
Louis XIV, 479, 480, 482, 520, 530, 

544 
Louis Philippe (fe lep'), 624 
Luck'now, 650 

Mac ad'am, 58 1 

McMurrough, Dermot, 168 

Ma dras', 566, 568 

Magdalen (maud'lin) College, fel- 
lows of, 503, 506 

Magellan, Straits of, 359 

Magna Carta, events leading to, 
180; character of, 181; attempt 
to revoke, 186; confirmation of, 
186, 216 

Mali rat'tas, 566 

Malcolm, king of Scots, 107 

Maldon, battle of, 74 

Malplaquet (mal pla ka/), battle of, 

534 
Manchester Massacre, 618 
Manors, 201 
Ma/5 ris, 67 1 

Mar, rising under the earl of, 543 
Marches of England, Scotland, and 

Wales, 220 s 

Marlborough, John Churchill, duke 

of > 53 L 533> 54o 
Marlborough, Lady, 532, 541 
Marston Moor, battle of, 444 
Mary Tudor, Queen, 294, 319; char- 
acter of, 320 ; Catholic reaction 
under, 321 ; marries Philip II, 
322; persecutions of, 324; death 
of, 326 
Mary, Queen, daughter of James II, 

475. 505 

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, char- 
acter of, 340 ; position of, in 
Scotland, 342 ; marriage of, 343 ; 
expulsion of, from Scotland and 
imprisonment in England, 344, 
349 ; trial and execution of, 362 

Mason and Slidell, 653 

Matilda, daughter of Henry I, 129; 
war of, with Stephen, 130, 140 



Matilda, wife of Henry I, 120 

Matthew Paris, 165, 192, 194 

" Mayflower," 405 

Medeshamstead (meds'am sted), 61 

Mee'rut, 650 

Melbourne, Lord, 632 

Mendicant orders, 194 

Merchants Adventurers, 285, 352 

Mercia (mer'sha), kingdom of, 38; 
rise of, 54, 56 

Mercians, 69 

Mersey (mer'zy), 5 

Merton College, 189 

Methodism, rise of, 551 

Methuen (meth'u en) Treaty, 535 

Metropolitical visitation, 423 

MiPan Decree, 613 

Militant suffragists, 697 

Military service, 103 

Militia, struggle for, between Charles 
I and parliament, 441 

Milton, John, 446, 490 

Minimum wage boards, 687 

Ministers under Henry I, 125 

Ministry, method of changing, 664, 
681 

M5 guF, 571, 650 

Mo'na, island of, a refuge for Druids, 
21 

Monasteries, early, 51 ; influence of, 
51; learning in, 76; decay of, 
299 ; dissolution of, 301 ; sup- 
pressed in Ireland, 304 

Moneyers, 72, 73 

Monk, General, 464 

Monmouth (mon'muth), James, duke 

of, 475' 477, 499 
Monopolies under Charles I, 425 
More, Sir Thomas, 287, 303 
Morkere (mor'ker), earl of North- 

umbria, 95, 97 
Morris, William, 705 
Mortagne (mortan'), 129 
Morton's fork, 282 
Muscovy Company, 353 

Namur (na moor'), capture of, by 

William III, 522 
Napoleon, 610, 614 
Narrow seas, 1 
Naseby, battle of, 448 



Xll 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Natal", 673, 675 

National Covenant of Scotland, 432 
National debt, creation of, 527 
National Insurance Act, 688 
Nationalist party, Irish, 665 
Nationalist Volunteers, 710 
Naval supremacy of England, 535 
Navigation Acts, 456, 478, 586, 

641 
Nelson, Horatio, 611 
Ne o lith'ic men, 13 
New Amsterdam, 479 
New learning, 287, 305, 327, 330 
New Orleans, battle of, 613 
New South Wales, 572, 670 
New taxes, 690 
New Zealand, 669, 671 
Newcastle, duke of, 562 
Newfoundland, first settlement of, 

354 
Newspapers, 497 
Nightingale, Florence, 648 
Nile, battle of the, 611 
Nominated parliament, 460 
Nomination boroughs, 598 
Norham (nor'am), award of, 221 
Normandy, origin of, 88 ; extent of, 
in the eleventh century, 89 ; early 
connection of, with England, 89, 
91 ; under William I, 92 ; loss of, 
by John, 175; Edward III gives 
up claim to, 242 
Norman-French language, 106 
Normans, victory of, at Hastings, 95; 
importance of conquest of, 100; 
obtain estates of English nobles, 
102 ; fusion of, with English, 106; 
architecture of, 141 
North, Lord, 577, 591, 595 
Northmen, 59 ; in France, 88 
Northumberland, duke of, 317, 320 
Northumbria, conversion, 46, 47 ; 

greatness of, 54 
Northwest passage, search for a, 

355 
Norway, foundation of, 85 
Norwich (nor'ich), 142 
Nottingham, 442 

Oates (otes), Titus, 473 
O'Connell, Daniel, 621, 637 



Odo, 102 

Offa of Mercia, 56 

Ohio Company, 561 

O'laf of Norway, 86 

Old age pensions, 684 

Opium war, 652 

Orange, prince of, 350 

Orange River Colony, 675 

Orange River Free State, 673 

Ordeal, of hot iron, 81 ; of water. 

81 ; forbidden, 151 
Orders in Council, 613 
Ordinances, 445 
Oriel College, 191 
Orleans, siege of, 268 
O r5'sius's History of the World, 68 
Ostmen, 59 
Oswald (oz'wald), 47 
Oudenarde (ow de nar'de), battle of, 

534 
Outlanders, 674 
Owen, king in Wales, 70 
Owen, Robert, 705 
Owen Glendower, 265 
Oxford, provisions of, 208 

Paleolithic (pal e o lith'ic) men, 13 

Pallium, 100 

Palmerston, Lord, 648, 655, 657 

Panama, Drake's crossing of the 
Isthmus of, 358 

Paris, Peace of, of 1763, 571 ; of 
783, 593; of 1856, 64S 

Parish councils, 664 

Parliament, origin of, 207 ; introduc- 
tion of the commons into, 210; 
under Henry III, 212; of Simon 
de Montfort, 212; of 1295, 213; 
attack of, on church, 242 ; growth 
of, 246; Good, 247 ; under Henry 
IV, 264 ; decrease of power of, 
284; subserviency to Henry VIIL 
297; Reformation, 298; discord 
between James I and, 407; strug- 
gle of Charles I with, 413 ; draws 
up Petition of Right', 414; pro- 
rogation, adjournment, and disso- 
lution of, 416; Short, 433; Long, 
434; Rump, 451, 454; Little, 459; 
and Charles II, 467 ; Convention, 
469 ; Cavalier, 469 ; recognition 



INDEX 



Xlll 



of power of, 485 ; under William 
III, 523 ; in eighteenth century, 
541 ; bribery and corruption in, 
525, 548; defects in representa- 
tion in, 598 ; reform of, 601, 658, 
662, 696; discord between two 
houses of, 692 ; length of term 
reduced to five years, 694; pay- 
ment of members of, 695 

Parliament Act of 191 1, 693 

Par'nell, Charles Stewart, 665 

Patterson, William, 527 

Pau ll'nus, 46 

Payment of members of parliament, 

695 

Peace, the, after 181 5, 617 

Peasants' Insurrection of 1381, 248 

Peel, Sir Robert, 620, 622, 633, 641 

Pelham (pel'am), Henry, 562 

" Pelican," 359 

Penal Code, reform of, 619 

Peninsular Campaign, 614 

Peter des Roches (pe'ter da rosh'), 
bishop of Winchester, 204 

Petitioners, 487, 

Petty wars of nineteenth century, 
652 

Philip II of Spain marries Queen 
Mary, 322 ; invades England, 363 

Physical-force Chartists, 636 

Picts, 16, 31, 36, 48 

Pied poudre (pe a'poo dra'), 200 

Pie-powder courts, 200 

Pilgrim Fathers, 404 

Pilgrimage of Grace, 303 

Pipe Rolls, 128 

Pitt, William, opposes Walpole, 
556; ministry of, 562; relations 
of, with George III, 577 ; favors 
conciliation with America, 591 

Pitt, William, the younger, 595 ; and 
French Revolution, 604; and Ire- 
land, 608 ; resigns, 609 

Pittsburg, 564 

Plague, the, 493 

Plassey, battle of, 571 

Plural voting, 695 

Pocket boroughs, 598 

Poitiers (pw'a te aV), battle of, 241 

Pole, Cardinal, 324 

Political parties, origin of, 486 



Poor law, of Elizabeth, 367 ; re- 
pealed, 630 ; new, 630 

Poor priests, Wycliffe's, 252 

Popes, change of names of, 107 

Popish plot, 473 

Population, shifting of, to north, 
580 

Porto Bello, 535, 556 

Post nati (na'te), 393 

Postage, introduction of cheap, 631 

Potteries, jo 

Poy'nings's Law, 304, 593 

Praemunire (pre mil ni're), 296 

Pragmatic Sanction, 558 

Prayer book, formation of, 310 

Prehistoric races, 12 

Presbyterianism, 431, 445, 447, 450, 
470, 518 

Prestonpans, battle of, 549 

Pretenders, 531, 543, 549 

Pride's Purge, 451 

Prime ministership, origin of, 547 

Primer, in English, 307 

Printing introduced into England, 
288 

Privy council, 526 

Protectorate, of duke of Somerset, 
310, 316; of Cromwell, 460 

Protestant Duke, 475, 499 

Protestants and Catholics, definition 

of, 333 
Protestation, Great, 409 
Prynne (prin), William, 422 
Puritanism, under Elizabeth, 334, 

347 ; under James I, 3S6, 390, 404 ; 

under Charles I, 416, 421, 424; 

in the Long Parliament, 438 
Pym (pim), John, 414, 433, 440, 443, 

468 

Quakers, 446, 460, 470 
Quebec (kwe bek'), 564 
Queensland, 670 
Quo war ran'to writs, 489 

Radical party, 623 

Raleigh (raw'ly), Sir Walter, 354, 

376, 400, 402 
Ramillies (rameye'), battle of, 533 
Ranulf Flam'bard, 119, 120, 126 
" Raven," 65 



XIV 



A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



Recognitions, 150 

Reform Bill of 1832, 624, 62S ; of 
1867, 658; of 1884-1S85, 662; of 
191 1-1914, 696 

Reformation, foundations of, 297 ; 
stages of, 305 ; completion of, 
311 ; in Scotland, 342 

Regicides, 468 

Regular clergy, 51 

Renaissance (ren a sans'), 2S6 

Representation, American and Eng- 
lish ideas of, 587 ; defects in, 597 

Retainers, 269 

Revolt of 1 173, 166 

Revolution of 1688, 509 

Revolutionary Society, 603 

Rhe (ra), attack on the Isle of, 412 

Rhodes, Cecil J., 674, 677 

Richard Cceur de Lion (kur de 
le on'), 171, 172 

Richard TI, 247 ; meets rebels of 
1 38 1, 249; takes up the work of 
government, 25S ; is deposed and 
murdered, 260 

Richard III, 274 

Richard de Lucy, 148 

Richard, duke of York, 271 

Richmond, earl of, 274 

Ridolfi (redol'fe) Plot, 350 

Right, Petition of, 415 

Rights of Man, Declaration of the, 
602 

Riots, Lord George Gordon, 599 

Rising of 17 1 5, 543 ; of 1745, 549 

Rivers of England, 5 

Rizzio (rit'se 0), David, 343 

Robert, duke of Normandy, 91 

Robert of Mortain, 102 

Robert, son of William the Con- 
queror, 113, 114, 119 

Roberts, Lord, 675 

Roger of Wendover, 192 

Rollo, first duke of Normans, 88 

Roman, conquest, 20; camps as sites 
of modern cities, 24 ; population 
of Britain, 24 ; towns in Britain, 
24 ; building, 25 ; villas in Britain, 
26; wall, 26; industries, 27; roads, 
27 ; coins, 28 ; inscriptions, 29 ; 
forts, 31; troops withdrawn, 32; 
law in England, 191 



Roman Britain, 20, 30 ; decay of, 30 

Root and Branch Bill, 439 

Roses, Wars of the, 269, 275; 
effects of, 281 

Rotten boroughs, 598, 624 

Rouen (rw'ah'), 88, 269 

Roundheads, 443 

Royal Society, 496 

Royalist and parliamentarian theo- 
ries of government, 387 

Runes, 40 

Rural life, in Roman Britain, 26 ; in 
Saxon England, 71 

Russell, execution of, 477 

Russell, Lord John, 625, 633 

Rye House Plot, 477 

Ryswick (riz'wick), Peace of, 524 

St. Albans (sant awl'banz), chroni- 
clers of, 192 ; council of, in 1213, 
179 

St. Benedict, 51 ; rule of, 51 

St. Giles's (sant jils) church, Edin- 
burgh, 432 

St. Martin, church of, 45 

St. Patrick, 48 

St. Paul's Cathedral, burning of, 
493 ; rebuilding of, 495 

Salic Law, 232 

Salisbury, Lord, 665 

Salisbury (saulz'ber i) Cathedral, 187 

Salisbury Oath, 112, 138 

Saxon England, 36 

Saxons, 31, 36; settlements of, 38; 
language of, 39 

vScandinavian races as settlers, 88 

Schism Act, 542 

Schools under Edward VI, 313; 
free elementary, 660 

Scone, stone of, 224 

Scotch-Irish, 539 

Scotland, invasion of, by William the 
Conqueror, 107 ; invasion of, by 
Henry II, 167 ; conquest of, by 
Edward I, 224; regains independ- 
ence, 226; reformation in, 342; 
rebellion of 1637 in, 431 ; conquest 
of, by Cromwell, 455 ; union of, 
with England, 536 

Scots, 31, 36, 48 

Scottish missions, 46 



OUTLINE LIST OF KINGS 



749 



An Outline List of English Kings since the Norman 
Conquest with their Relationship and Dates * 

William I, 1066-1087 



William II, 1087-1100 Henry I, 1100-1135 Adela 

Matilda Stephen, 1135-1154 

Henry II, 1154-1189 



Richard I, 11 89-1 199 



Edward, the 

Black Prince, 

died 1376 

Richard II, 
1377-1399 



John, 1199-1216 

Henry III, 1216-1272 

I 
Edward I, 1272-1307 

I 
Edward II, 1 307-1327 

I 
Edward III, 1327-1377 

l 



Lionel, duke of Clarence 



John, duke of Lancaster 



Henry IV, 1399-1413 John, earl of 

Somerset 
Henry V, 1413-1422 

I 
Henry VI, 1422-1461 



Edward IV, 1461-1483 

I 

Edward V, 1483 



Richard III, 1483- 148 5 



Henry VII, 1485-1509 
I 



Henry VIII, 1 509-1 547 Margaret, m. James IV 

king of Scotland 

I 1 ; I 

Mary, 1 5 53-1 5 58 Elizabeth, 1 558-1603 Edward VI, 1547-1553 



Mary, Oueen of Scots 

I 

(see next page) 



750 A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND 

James I, 1603-1625 



Charles 


I, 1625-1649 
1 


Elizabeth, m. Elector 
Palatine 


1 
Charles II, 1660-- 


168 


5 James II, 1685-16S8 
1 






1 

James, the 

Old Pretender 




1 

Mary, 1688-1694 

m. William III, 1688-1702 


Anne, 1702-1714 






1 
George I, 1714- 1 

1 


727 








George II, 1727-] 


760 






Frederick, Prince of Wales, died 175 1 






1 
George III, 1760- 

1 


1820 


died 1820 
01 


1 
George IV, 
1820-1830 




! 

William IV, 

1830-1837 


1 
Edward, duke of Kent, 

1 
\ ictoria, 1S37-IC 








1 
Edward VII, 1901-1910 








1 
George V, 1910- 





1 Names given without dates indicate not rulers but men or women 
through whom the claim to the crown was transmitted. More generations 
sometimes intervened between two successive rulers than are here in- 
dicated ; the circumstances can be found by referring to the proper places 
in the text, or to the more detailed genealogical tables on pp. 113, 145, 
270, 278, 383, 384, 529, 543, and 632. 



INDEX 



All unmarked vowels are short. Other vowels are marked either long or a as in far. 
French ri as in bon 



Ab er deer/, 648 

Abhorrers, 487 

Aboukir (a boo ker'), 61 1 

Ab ys sin' i a, 653 

A ca'di a, 667 

Ac co lade', 239 

Acts. See Statutes 

Ad'e la, daughter of William the 
Conqueror, 113 

.Elfric (alf'ric), 75 

/Elius (e'li us) Ru'fus, 29 

yEthelbald (eth'el bald) of Mercia, 54 

^Ethelflaed (eth'el fled) 70 

,Ethelstan (eth'el stan), king of 
Wessex, 70; title of, 71; and 
battle of Brunanburh, 73 

/Ethelwulf, Ethelwulf (eth'el woolf), 
60, 64 

Af ghan i stan', 653, 662 

Africa, early voyages to, 356; im- 
perial interests in, 672 

Agincourt (azh ah koor'), battle of, 
267 

Agreement of the People, 454 

A gric'd la, 22 

Agriculture, of the Britons, 17 ; of 
the Romans, 28 ; of the Saxons, 
43, 71 ; in the Middle Ages, 200; 
changes of, in the Tudor period, 
314; in the eighteenth century, 
582 

Aidan (i'dan), 47 

Aix la Chapelle (aks la sha pel'), 
Peace of, 559 

Ak'bar, 565 

" Alabama," the, 654 

Alan of Brittany, 102 

Albert, Prince, 632, 642 

Albion, 4 



Alencon (al ah son'), duke of, 346 

Alfred the Great, and the Danes, 
63, 65 ; character of, 64, 68 ; mili- 
tary reforms of, 65 ; laws of, 66 ; 
work of, for education, 67 ; influ- 
ence of, 69 ; titles of, 7 r 

Alva, duke of, 352 

America, discovery of, 286 ; French 
and English in, 560 ; grievances 

in, 585 
American Civil War, attitude of 

England towards, 653 
American Revolution, 592 
Amiens, Mise of (mez of a myah'), 

209 ; Treaty of, 605 
An der'i da, 38 
Angevin (an'je vin) line of kings, 

145 
Angle-land, 40 
Angles, 36, 37 
Anglicanism, 385 
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 58, 61, 68, 

73> MO 

Anglo-Saxons, language of, 39 ; re- 
ligion of, 41 ; life and government 
of, 42; internal strife among, 53; 
life of, in the tenth century, 
71 ; political organization of, 78; 
classes and ranks of, 82 

Anjou (ah-zhoo'), 145 

An'nates, Acts of, 298 

Anne, Queen, accession of, 531 ; re- 
lations of, with the Marlboroughs, 
531 ; political parties under, 539 

Anne Boleyn (bull'en), 294, 308 

Anne of Cleves, 309 

Anselm and William Rufus, 117; 
and investiture struggle, 122, 124. 
140 



/ 

A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND *?? 






Anti-Corn-Law League, 640 

Anti-suffrage societies, 699 

Appeals, Act of, 298, 308 

Aquitaine (akwitan'), 230 

Archdeacons, 157 

Archery, 97, 235, 236 

Architecture, of Norman period, 141; 
in thirteenth century, 187; in time 
of Elizabeth, 371 ; in Restoration 
period, 494 

Ar cot', 568 

Arden forest, 8 

Arkwright, 579 

Armada, the Spanish, 364 

Army, Danish, 61 ; in time of 
Edward III, 236; New Model, 
447 ; standing, 490 ; reorganiza- 
tion of, 661 ; increase of, in re- 
cent years, 714 

Arthur of Brittany, 174 

A shan'tee, 653 

As i en'to Treaty, 535 

As'quith, Herbert Henry, prime 
minister, 681 ; opinions on social 
reforms, 690 ; opposition to 
women's suffrage, 700 

Assize, Great, 149; of Clarendon, 
151, 163 ; of Arms, 154 

Assizes, 149; Bloody, 499 

Ath'el ney, 65 

Attainder, bills of, 309, 435 

Au gus'tine, mission of, to Britain, 
44 ; appointment of, as arch- 
bishop, 46 

Au gus tin'ians, 159 

Australia, 572, 669, 671 

Australian federation and self- 
government, 671 

Austrian Succession, War of the, 

558 
Avignon (a ve'nyon), 243 

Babington's Plot, 361 
Bacon, Francis, 376, 379, 398, 400 
Bacon, Roger, 190 
Baeda (be da), 53 
Baffin, 355 
Ba ha'mas, 666 
Ba la cla'va, battle of, 647 
Baliol (baTyul), John, chosen king 
of Scotland, 222 ; deposed, 224 



Ballot, introduction of the, 660 
Bank of England, 527 ^ *2J 
Bannockburn, battle of, 226 
Baptists, 446, 460, 470 
Bar ba'does, 405, 666 J- I 
Barons, struggle of, with William 
II, 113; struggle of, with Henry I, 
124; revolt of, against Henry II, 
166; rebellion of, against John, 
179 ; wars of, 209 
Basques (basks), 13 
Bastille (bas teT), capture of the, 

603 
Battle Abbey, 105 
Bayeux (ba yu') Tapestry, 93 
Beachy Head, battle # of, 521 
Beaconsfield (bek'ons field), 662 
Beauclerc (bo clar'), 121 
Becket, Thomas, 148; early career 
of, 161 ; made archbishop, 161 ; 
and Constitutions of Clarendon, 
162; exile and death of, 164 
Bede, 53 ; Ecclesiastical History of, 

53 

Belgium, trade with, 231 ; artisans 
from, 273, 352 ; attack on, in war 
of 1914, 718 

Benares (be n'a'raz), 570 

Ben e dic'tine monasteries, 51 

Benefice, 242 

Beowulf (ba' o woolf), 40 

Berlin Decree, 613 

Ber mu'das, 405, 666 

Bernicia (ber nish'a), 37 

Bible, in Anglo-Saxon, 75; in Eng- 
lish, 253, 307 ; translation of, at- 
tributed to Wy cliff e, 253; new 
translation of, 390 

Bicameral system, 214 

Bill of Rights, 510 

Billeting of soldiers, 414, 415 

Bishoprics, establishment of, 49 

Bishops and abbots in Norman 
England, 104 

Bishops' Wars, the, 433 

Black country, 6 

Black Death, 243 

Black Prince, 238, 247 

Blake, 457 

Blenheim (blen'em), battle of, 533 

Blois (blwa), 129 



LRlAo?8 



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